.THE- INDUSTRIAL  READERS  ~ 


OF  MANY  THINGS 


Em 


UC-NRLF 


SB    30b 


GIFT  OF 
-LINQU1ST 


EDUCATION  DEPT. 


THE  INDUSTRIAL  READERS 
Book  HI 

MAKERS  OF  MANY 
THINGS 


BY 


EVA  MARCH  TAPPAN,  PH.D. 

Author  of  "England's  Story,"  "American  Hero  Stories," 

"  Old  World  Hero  Stories,"  "  Story  of  the  Greek  People," 

"Story  of  the  Roman  People,"  etc.     Editor  of 

"  The  Children's  Hour." 


HOUGHTON  MIFFLIN  COMPANY 

BOSTON  NEW  YORK  CHICAGO 


COPYRIGHT,    1916,   BY   EVA   MARCH   TAPPAN 
ALL   RIGHTS   RESERVED 


Gift 

R.D  .LINOUIST 

EDUCATION  DEPT. 


Cftf  ^ibrrsibr  JJrrss 

CAMBRIDGE  .  MASSACHUSETTS 
U    .    S   .    A 


PREFACE 

THE  four  books  of  this  series  have  been  written 
not  merely  to  provide  agreeable  reading  matter  for 
children,  but  to  give  them  information.  When  a 
child  can  look  at  a  steel  pen  not  simply  as  an  article 
furnished  by  the  city  for  his  use,  but  rather  as  the 
result  of  many  interesting  processes,  he  has  made  a 
distinct  growth  in  intelligence.  When  he  has  begun 
to  apprehend  the  fruitfulness  of  the  earth,  both 
above  ground  and  below,  and  the  best  way  in  which 
its  products  may  be  utilized  and  carried  to  the 
places  where  they  are  needed,  he  has  not  only  ac- 
quired a  knowledge  of  many  kinds  of  industrial  life 
which  may  help  him  to  choose  his  life-work  wisely 
from  among  them,  but  he  has  learned  the  depend- 
ence of  one  person  upon  other  persons,  of  one  part 
of  the  world  upon  other  parts,  and  the  necessity  of 
peaceful  intercourse.  Best  of  all,  he  has  learned  to 
see.  Wordsworth's  familiar  lines  say  of  a  man  whose 
eyes  had  not  been  opened,  — 

"A  primrose  by  a  river's  brim 
A  yellow  primrose  was  to  him, 
And  it  was  nothing  more." 

These  books  are  planned  to  show  the  children  that 
there  is  "something  more";  to  broaden  their  hori- 
zon; to  reveal  to  them  what  invention  has  accom- 
plished and  what  wide  room  for  invention  still 
remains;  to  teach  them  that  reward  comes  to  the 


57586J 


iv  PREFACE 

man  who  improves  his  output  beyond  the  task  of  the 
moment ;  and  that  success  is  waiting,  not  for  him  who 
works  because  he  must,  but  for  him  who  works  be- 
cause he  may. 

Acknowledgment  is  due  to  the  Diamond  Match 
Company,  Hood  Rubber  Company,  S.  D.  Warren 
Paper  Company,  The  Riverside  Press,  E.  Faber, 
C.  Howard  Hunt  Pen  Company,  Waltham  Watch 
Company,  Mark  Cross  Company,  I.  Prouty  & 
Company,  Cheney  Brothers,  and  others,  whose  ad- 
vice and  criticism  have  been  of  most  valuable  aid 
in  the  preparation  of  this  volume. 

EVA  MARCH  TAPPAN. 


CONTENTS 

I.  THE  LITTLE  FRICTION  MATCH i 

II.  ABOUT  INDIA  RUBBER         6 

III.  "Km"  GLOVES 16 

IV.  How  RAGS  AND  TREES  BECOME  PAPER       ...  25 

V.    HOW    BOOKS   ARE   MADE 36 

VI.  FROM  GOOSE  QUILLS  TO  FOUNTAIN  PENS  AND  LEAD 

PENCILS 46 

VII.  THE  DISHES  ON  OUR  TABLES 56 

VIII.  How  THE  WHEELS  OF  A  WATCH  GO  AROUND    .      .  64 

IX.  THE  MAKING  OF  SHOES 73 

X.  IN  THE  COTTON  MILL         82 

XL  SILKWORMS  AND  THEIR  WORK 92 


THE  INDUSTRIAL  READERS 

BOOK  III 


MAKERS  OF   MANY  THINGS 


THE  LITTLE  FRICTION  MATCH 

I  REMEMBER  being  once  upon  a  time  ten  miles 
from  a  store  and  one  mile  from  a  neighbor;  the  fire 
had  gone  out  in  the  night,  and  the  last  match  failed 
to  blaze.  We  had  no  flint  and  steel.  We  were 
neither  Indians  nor  Boy  Scouts,  and  we  did  not 
know  how  to  make  a  fire  by  twirling  a  stick.  There 
was  nothing  to  do  but  to  trudge  off  through  the  snow 
to  the  neighbor  a  mile  away  and  beg  some  matches. 
Then  was  the  time  when  we  appreciated  the  little 
match  and  thought  with  profound  respect  of  the 
men  who  invented  and  perfected  it. 

It  is  a  long  way  from  the  safe  and  reliable  match 
of  to-day  back  to  the  splinters  that  were  soaked  in 
chemicals  and  sold  together  with  little  bottles  of 
sulphuric  acid.  The  splinter  was  expected  to  blaze 
when  dipped  into  the  acid.  Sometimes  it  did  blaze, 
and  sometimes  it  did  not;  but  it  was  reasonably 
certain  how  the  acid  would  behave,  for  it  would 
always  sputter  and  do  its  best  to  spoil  some  one's 
clothes.  Nevertheless,  even  such  matches  as  these 


2    ,  ;    MAKERS  OF  MANY  THINGS 

were  regarded  as  a  wonderful  convenience,  and  were 
sold  at  five  dollars  a  hundred.  With  the  next  kind 
of  match  that  appeared,  a  piece  of  folded  sand- 
paper was  sold,  and  the  buyer  was  told  to  pinch  it 
hard  and  draw  the  match  through  the  fold.  These 
matches  were  amazingly  cheap  —  eighty-four  of 
them  for  only  twenty-five  cents!  There  have  been 
all  sorts  of  odd  matches.  One  kind  actually  had  a 
tiny  glass  ball  at  the  end  full  of  sulphuric  acid.  To 
light  this,  you  had  to  pinch  the  ball  and  the  acid 
that  was  thus  let  out  acted  upon  the  other  chemi- 
cals on  the  match  and  kindled  it — or  was  expected 
to  kindle  it,  which  was  not  always  the  same  thing. 

Making  matches  is  a  big  business,  even  if  one 
hundred  of  them  are  sold  for  a  cent.  It  is  estimated 
that  on  an  average  each  person  uses  seven  matches 
every  day.  To  provide  so  many  would  require  some 
seven  hundred  million  matches  a  day  in  this  coun- 
try alone.  It  seems  like  a  very  simple  matter  to 
cut  a  splinter  of  wood,  dip  it  into  some  chemicals, 
and  pack  it  into  a  box  for  sale;  and  it  would  be 
simple  if  it  were  all  done  by  hand,  but  the  matches 
would  also  be  irregular  and  extremely  expensive. 
The  way  to  make  anything  cheap  and  uniform  is 
to  manufacture  it  by  machinery. 

The  first  step  in  making  matches  is  to  select  some 
white-pine  plank  of  good  quality  and  cut  it  into 
blocks  of  the  proper  size.  These  are  fed  into  a  ma- 
chine which  sends  sharp  dies  through  them  and  thus 
cuts  the  match  splints.  Over  the  splint  cutter  a 
carrier  chain  is  continuously  moving,  and  into  holes 


THE   ENDLESS   MATCH    MACHINE 

The  match  splints  are  set  in  tiny  holes  like  pins  in  a  pincushion,  and  the  belt  revolves, 
passing  their  heads  through  various  chemicals. 


4  MAKERS  OF  MANY  THINGS 

in  this  chain  the  ends  of  the  match  splints  are  forced 
at  the  rate  of  ten  or  twelve  thousand  a  minute. 

The  splints  remain  in  the  chain  for  about  an 
hour,  and  during  this  hour  all  sorts  of  things  happen 
to  them.  First,  they  are  dipped  into  hot  paraffin 
wax,  because  this  will  light  even  more  easily  than 
wood.  As  soon  as  the  wax  is  dry,  the  industrious 
chain  carries  them  over  a  dipping-roll  covered  with 
a  layer  consisting  partly  of  glue  and  rosin.  Currents 
of  air  now  play  upon  the  splint,  and  in  about  ten 
minutes  the  glue  and  rosin  on  one  end  of  it  have 
hardened  into  a  hard  bulb.  It  is  not  a  match  yet 
by  any  means,  for  scratching  it  would  not  make  it 
light.  The  phosphorus  which  is  to  make  it  into  a 
match  is  on  another  dipping-roll.  This  is  sesqui- 
sulphide  of  phosphorus.  The  common  yellow  phos- 
phorus is  poisonous,  and  workmen  in  match  fac- 
tories where  it  was  used  were  in  danger  of  suffering 
from  a  terrible  disease  of  the  jaw  bone.  At  length 
it  was  discovered  that  sesqui-sulphide  of  phos- 
phorus would  make  just  as  good  matches  and 
was  harmless.  Our  largest  match  company  held 
the  patent  giving  them  the  exclusive  right  to  cer- 
tain processes  by  which  the  sesqui-sulphide  was 
made;  and  this  patent  they  generously  gave  up  to 
the  people  of  the  United  States. 

After  the  splints  have  been  dipped  into  the  prep- 
aration of  phosphorus,  they  are  carried  about  on 
the  chain  vertically,  horizontally,  on  the  outside 
of  some  wheels  and  the  inside  of  others,  and  through 
currents  of  air.  Then  they  are  turned  over  to  a  chain 


THE  LITTLE  FRICTION  MATCH        5 

divided  into  sections  which  carries  them  to  a  pack- 
ing-machine. This  machine  packs  them  into  boxes, 
a  certain  number  in  each  box,  and  they  are  slid 
down  to  girls  who  make  the  boxes  into  packages. 
These  are  put  into  wooden  containers  and  are  ready 
for  sale. 

As  in  most  manufactures,  these  processes  must 
be  carried  on  with  great  care  and  exactness.  The 
wood  must  be  carefully  selected  and  of  straight 
grain,  the  dipping-rolls  must  be  kept  covered  with  a 
fresh  supply  of  composition,  and  its  depth  must  be 
always  uniform.  Even  the  currents  of  air  in  which 
the  splints  are  dried  must  be  just  warm  enough  to 
dry  them  and  just  moist  enough  not  to  dry  them 
too  rapidly. 

The  old  sulphur  matches  made  in ' '  card  and  block ' ' 
can  no  longer  be  bought  in  this  country ;  the  safety 
match  has  taken  their  place.  One  kind  of  safety 
match  has  the  phosphorus  on  the  box  and  the  other 
igniting  substances  on  the  match,  so  that  the  match 
will  not  light  unless  it  is  scratched  on  the  box;  but 
this  kind  has  never  been  a  favorite  in  the  United 
States.  The  second  kind,  the  one  generally  used, 
may  be  struck  anywhere,  but  these  matches  are  safe 
because  even  stepping  upon  one  will  not  light  it; 
it  must  be  scratched. 

A  match  is  a  little  thing,  but  nothing  else  can  do 
its  work. 


II 

ABOUT   INDIA  RUBBER 

WHEN  you  pick  a  dandelion  or  a  milkweed,  a 
white  sticky  "milk"  oozes  out;  and  this  looks  just 
like  the  juice  of  the  various  sorts  of  trees,  shrubs, 
and  vines  from  which  India  rubber  is  made.  The 
"rubber  plant"  which  has  been  such  a  favorite  in 
houses  is  one  of  these;  in  India  it  becomes  a  large 
tree  which  has  the  peculiar  habit  of  dropping  down 
from  its  branches  "bush-ropes,"  as  they  are  called. 
These  take  root  and  become  stout  trunks.  There  is 
literally  a  "rubber  belt"  around  the  world,  for 
nearly  all  rubber  comes  from  the  countries  lying 
between  the  Tropic  of  Cancer  and  the  Tropic  of 
Capricorn.  More  than  half  of  all  that  is  brought  to 
market  is  produced  in  the  valley  of  the  Amazon 
River;  and  some  of  this  "Para  rubber,"  as  it  is 
called,  from  the  seaport  whence  it  is  shipped,  is  the 
best  in  the  world. 

The  juice  or  latex  flows  best  about  sunrise,  and 
so  the  natives  who  collect  it  have  to  be  early  risers. 
They  make  little  cuts  in  the  bark  of  the  tree,  stick 
on  with  a  bit  of  clay  a  tiny  cup  underneath  each 
cut,  and  move  on  through  the  forest  to  the  next 
tree.  Sometimes  they  make  narrow  V-shaped  cuts 
in  the  bark,  one  above  another,  but  all  coming  into 
a  perpendicular  channel  leading  to  the  foot  of  the 


Courtesy     General  Rubber    Co. 

TAPPING   RUBBER  TREES   IN    SUMATRA 

The  plantation  on  which  this  photograph  was  taken  has  45,000  acres  of  planted  rubber 
trees,  and  employs  14,000  coolies. 


8  MAKERS  OF  MANY  THINGS 

tree.  Later  in  the  day  the  collectors  empty  the  cups 
into  great  jugs  and  carry  them  to  the  camp. 

When  the  rubber  juice  reaches  the  camp,  it  is 
poured  into  a  great  bowl.  The  men  build  a  fire  of 
sticks,  and  always  add  a  great  many  palm  nuts, 
which  are  oily  and  make  a  good  deal  of  smoke. 
Over  the  fire  they  place  an  earthen  jar  shaped  like  a 
cone,  but  without  top  or  bottom.  Now  work  be- 
gins. It  is  fortunate  that  it  can  be  done  in  the  open 
air,  and  that  the  man  can  sit  on  the  windward  side, 
for  the  smoke  rises  through  the  smaller  hole  thick 
and  black  and  suffocating.  The  man  takes  a  stick 
shaped  like  a  paddle,  dips  it  into  the  bowl,  and  holds 
it  in  the  smoke  and  heat,  turning  it  rapidly  over  and 
over  till  the  water  is  nearly  dried  out  of  the  rubber 
and  it  is  no  longer  milky,  but  dark-colored.  Then 
he  dips  this  paddle  in  again  and  again.  It  grows 
heavier  at  each  dipping,  but  he  keeps  on  till  he  has 
five  or  six  pounds  of  rubber.  With  a  wet  knife  he 
cuts  this  off,  making  what  are  called  "biscuits." 
After  many  years  of  this  sort  of  work,  some  one 
found  that  by  resting  one  end  of  a  pole  in  a  crotched 
stick  and  holding  the  other  in  his  hand,  a  man  could 
make  a  much  larger  biscuit. 

For  a  long  time  people  thought  that  rubber  trees 
could  not  be  cultivated.  One  difficulty  in  taking 
them  away  from  their  original  home  to  plant  is  that 
the  seeds  are  so  rich  in  oil  as  to  become  rancid  un- 
usually soon.  At  length,  however,  a  consignment 
of  them  was  packed  in  openwork  baskets  between 
layers  of  dried  wild  banana  leaves  and  slung  up  on 


ABOUT  INDIA  RUBBER  9 

deck  in  openwork  crates  so  as  to  have  plenty  of  air. 
By  this  means  seven  thousand  healthy  little  plants 
were  soon  growing  in  England,  and  from  there  were 
carried  to  Ceylon  and  the  East. 

On  the  rubber  plantations  collecting  juice  from 
trees  standing  near  together  and  in  open  ground  is 
an  altogether  different  matter  from  cutting  a  nar- 
row path  and  forcing  one's  way  through  a  South 
American  or  African  jungle.  The  bark  of  the  trees 
is  cut  in  herringbone  fashion.  The  collector  simply 
slices  a  thin  piece  off  the  bark  and  at  once  milk 
begins  to  ooze  out. 

On  the  great  plantations  of  the  East  the  rubber 
is  collected  chiefly  by  Chinese  and  Indians.  They 
are  carefully  taught  just  how  to  tap  the  trees. 
They  begin  four  or  five  feet  from  the  ground,  and 
work  down,  cutting  the  thinnest  possible  slice  at 
each  visit.  When  they  have  almost  reached  the 
ground,  they  begin  on  the  opposite  side  of  the  trunk; 
and  by  the  time  they  have  reached  the  ground  on 
that  side  the  bark  on  the  first  side  has  renewed  it- 
self. The  latex  is  strained  and  mixed  with  some  acid, 
usually  acetic,  in  order  to  coagulate  or  thicken  it. 
It  is  then  run  between  rollers,  hung  in  a  drying  house, 
and  generally  in  a  smokehouse. 

The  rubber  arrives  at  the  factory  in  bales  or  cases. 
First  of  all  it  must  be  thoroughly  washed  in  order 
to  get  rid  of  sand  or  bits  of  leaves  and  wood.  A 
machine  called  a  '  *  washer ' '  does  this  work.  It  forces 
the  rubber  between  grooved  rolls  which  break 
it  up;  and  as  this  is  done  under  a  spray  of  water, 


io  MAKERS  OF  MANY  THINGS 

the  rubber  is  much  cleaner  when  it  comes  out. 
Another  machine  makes  it  still  cleaner  and  forms 
it  into  long  sheets  about  two  feet  wide. 

Having  thoroughly  wet  the  rubber,  the  next  step 
is  to  dry  it  thoroughly.  The  old  way  was  to  hang  it 
up  for  several  weeks.  The  new  way  is  to  cut  it  into 
strips,  lay  it  upon  steel  trays,  and  place  it  in  a  vac- 
uum dryer.  This  is  kept  hot,  and  whatever  mois- 
ture is  in  the  rubber  is  either  evaporated  or  sucked 
out  by  a  vacuum  pump.  It  now  passes  through 
another  machine  much  like  the  washer,  and  is 
formed  into  sheets.  The  square  threads  from  which 
elastic  webbing  is  made  may  be  cut  from  these 
sheets,  though  sometimes  the  sheet  is  wound  on  an 
iron  drum,  vulcanized  by  being  put  into  hot  water, 
lightly  varnished  with  shellac  to  stiffen  it,  then 
wound  on  a  wooden  cylinder,  and  cut  into  square 
threads.  Boiling  these  in  caustic  soda  removes  the 
shellac.  To  make  round  threads,  softened  rubber 
is  forced  through  a  die.  Rubber  bands  are  made  by 
cementing  a  sheet  of  rubber  into  a  tube  and  then 
cutting  them  off  at  whatever  width  may  be  desired. 
Toy  balloons  are  made  of  such  rubber.  Two  pieces 
are  stamped  out  and  joined  by  a  particularly  noisy 
machine,  and  then  the  balloon  is  blown  out  by  com- 
pressed air. 

Early  in  the  nineteenth  century  it  was  known 
that  rubber  would  keep  out  water,  but  it  was  sticky 
and  unmanageable.  After  a  while  a  Scotch  chemist 
named  Mclntosh  succeeded  in  dissolving  rubber  in 
naphtha  and  spreading  it  between  two  thicknesses 


ABOUT  INDIA  RUBBER  11 

of  cloth.  That  is  why  his  name  is  given  to  raincoats 
made  in  this  way.  Overshoes,  too,  were  made  of 
pure  rubber  poured  over  clay  lasts  which  were 
broken  after  the  rubber  had  dried.  These  overshoes 
were  waterproof,  —  there  was  no  denying  that ; 
but  they  were  heavy  and  clumsy  and  shapeless. 
When  they  were  taken  off,  they  did  not  stand  up, 
but  promptly  fell  over.  In  hot  weather  they  became 
so  sticky  that  they  had  to  be  kept  in  the  cellar;  and 
in  winter  they  became  stiff  and  inelastic,  but  they 
never  wore  out.  How  to  get  rid  of  the  undesirable 
qualities  and  not  lose  the  desirable  ones  was  the 
question.  It  was  found  out  that  if  sulphur  was 
mixed  with  rubber,  the  disagreeable  stickiness 
would  vanish;  but  the  rubbers  continued  to  melt 
and  to  freeze  by  turns  until  an  American  named 
Charles  Goodyear  discovered  that  if  rubber  mixed 
with  sulphur  was  exposed  to  about  3OO°F.  of  heat 
for  a  number  of  hours,  the  rubber  would  remain 
elastic,  but  would  not  be  sticky  and  would  no  longer 
be  affected  by  heat  or  cold.  This  is  why  you  often 
see  the  name  Goodyear  on  the  bottom  of  rubbers. 

Rubber  overshoes  were  improved  at  once.  As 
they  now  are  made,  the  rubber  is  mixed  with  sul- 
phur, whiting,  litharge,  and  several  other  substances. 
An  honest  firm  will  add  only  those  materials  that 
will  be  of  service  in  making  the  rubber  more  easy  to 
mould  or  will  improve  it  in  some  way.  Unfortu- 
nately, substances  are  often  added,  not  for  this 
purpose,  but  to  increase  the  weight  and  apparent 
value  of  the  articles.  That  is  why  some  rubber 


12          MAKERS  OF  MANY  THINGS 

overshoes,  for  instance,  wear  out  so  much  faster 
than  others. 

To  make  an  overshoe,  the  rubber  is  run  through 
rollers  and  formed  into  thick  sheets  for  soles  and 
thinner  sheets  for  uppers.  Another  machine  coats 
with  gum  the  cloth  used  for  lining  and  stays.  Rub- 
ber and  rubber-lined  cloth  go  to  the  cutting-room, 
where  all  the  different  parts  of  the  shoes  are  cut  out. 
They  are  then  put  together  and  varnished.  While 
still  on  the  last,  they  are  dipped  into  a  tank  of  var- 
nish and  vulcanized  —  a  very  simple  matter  now 
that  Goodyear  has  shown  us  how,  for  they  are 
merely  left  in  large,  thoroughly  heated  ovens  for 
eight  or  ten  hours.  The  rubber  shoe  or  boot  is  now 
elastic,  strong,  waterproof,  ready  for  any  tempera- 
ture, and  so  firmly  cemented  together  with  rubber 
cement  that  it  is  practically  all  in  one  piece. 

During  the  last  few  years  there  have  been  fre- 
quent calls  from  various  charities  for  old  rubber 
overshoes,  pieces  of  rubber  hose,  etc.  These  are  of 
considerable  value  in  rubber  manufacturing.  They 
are  run  through  a  machine  which  tears  them  to 
shreds,  then  through  a  sort  of  fanning-mill  which 
blows  away  the  bits  of  lining.  Tiny  pieces  of  iron 
may  be  present  from  nails  or  rivets;  but  these  are 
easily  removed  by  magnets.  This  " reclaimed" 
rubber  is  powdered  and  mixed  with  the  new,  and 
for  some  purposes  the  mixture  answers  very  well. 
Imitation  rubber  has  been  made  by  heating  oil  of 
linseed,  hemp,  maize,  etc.,  with  sulphur;  but  no 
substitute  for  rubber  is  a  success  for  all  uses. 


Courtesy  U.  S.  Tire  Co. 

HOW   RUBBER  GOES  THROUGH  THE  FACTORY 

Splitting  Para  biscuits,  mixing  the  rubber,  rolling  the  rubber  fabric  on  cylinders,  and 
building  tires  on  the  tire  machines. 


14          MAKERS  OF  MANY  THINGS 

There  are  many  little  conveniences  made  of  rub- 
ber which  we  should  greatly  miss,  such  as  the  little 
tips  put  into  pencil  ends  for  erasing  pencil  marks. 
These  are  made  by  filling  a  mould  with  rubber. 
Rubber  corks  are  made  in  much  the  same  manner. 
Tips  for  the  legs  of  chairs  are  made  in  a  two-piece 
mould  larger  at  the  bottom  than  at  the  top,  and 
with  a  plunger  that  nearly  fits  the  small  end.  Often 
on  chair  tips  and  in  the  cup-shaped  eraser  that  goes 
over  the  ends  of  some  pencils  you  can  see  the  "fin," 
as  the  glassworkers  call  it,  where  the  two  pieces  of 
the  mould  did  not  exactly  fit.  Rubber  cannot  be 
melted  and  cast  in  moulds  like  iron,  but  it  can  be 
gently  heated  and  softened,  and  then  pressed  into 
a  mould.  Rubber  stamps  are  made  in  this  way. 
The  making  of  rubber  heels  and  soles  is  now  a  large 
industry;  hose  for  watering  and  for  vacuum  and 
Westinghouse  brakes  is  made  in  increasing  quanti- 
ties. The  making  of  rubber  tires  for  automobiles 
and  carriages  is  an  important  industry.  The  enor- 
mous and  increasing  use  of  electricity  requires  much 
use  of  rubber  as  an  insulator.  Rubber  gloves  will 
protect  an  electrical  workman  from  shock  and  a 
surgeon  from  infection.  Rubber  beds  and  cushions 
filled  with  air  are  a  great  comfort  in  illness.  Rubber 
has  great  and  important  uses;  but  we  should  per- 
haps miss  quite  as  much  the  little  comforts  and 
conveniences  which  it  has  made  possible. 

Rubber  and  gutta-percha  are  not  the  same  sub- 
stance by  any  means.  Both  of  them  are  made  of 
the  milky  juice  of  trees,  but  of  entirely  different 


ABOUT  INDIA  RUBBER  15 

trees.  The  gutta-percha  milk  is  collected  in  an 
absurdly  wasteful  manner,  namely,  by  cutting  down 
the  trees  and  scraping  up  the  juice.  When  this 
juice  reaches  the  market,  it  is  in  large  reddish  lumps 
which  look  like  cork  and  smell  like  cheese.  It  has 
to  be  cleaned,  passed  through  a  machine  that 
tears  it  into  bits,  then  between  rollers  before  it  is 
ready  to  be  manufactured.  It  is  not  elastic  like 
rubber;  it  may  be  stretched;  but  it  will  not  snap 
back  again  as  rubber  does.  It  is  a  remarkably  good 
nonconductor  of  electricity,  and  therefore  it  has 
been  generally  used  to  protect  ocean  cables,  though 
recently  rubber  has  been  taking  its  place.  It  makes 
particularly  excellent  casts,  for  when  it  is  warm  it  is 
not  sticky,  but  softens  so  perfectly  that  it  will  show 
the  tiniest  indentation  of  a  mould.  It  is  the  best 
kind  of  splint  for  a  broken  bone.  If  a  boy  breaks 
his  arm,  a  surgeon  can  put  a  piece  of  gutta-percha 
into  hot  water,  set  the  bone,  bind  on  the  softened 
gutta-percha  for  a  splint,  and  in  a  few  minutes  it  will 
be  moulded  to  the  exact  shape  of  the  arm,  but  so 
stiff  as  to  keep  the  bone  in  place.  Another  good 
service  which  gutta-percha  renders  to  the  physician 
results  from  its  willingness  to  dissolve  in  chloro- 
form. If  the  skin  is  torn  off,  leaving  a  raw  surface, 
this  dissolved  gutta-percha  can  be  poured  over  it, 
and  soon  it  is  protected  by  an  artificial  skin  which 
keeps  the  air  from  the  raw  flesh  and  gives  the  real 
skin  an  opportunity  to  grow  again. 


Ill 

"KID"  GLOVES 

THERE  is  an  old  proverb  which  says,  "  For  a  good 
glove,  Spain  must  dress  the  leather,  France  must 
cut  it,  and  England  must  sew  it."  Many  pairs  of 
most  excellent  gloves  have  never  seen  any  one  of 
these  countries,  but  the  moral  of  the  proverb  re- 
mains, namely,  that  it  takes  considerable  work  and 
care  to  make  a  really  good  glove. 

The  first  gloves  made  in  the  United  States  were 
of  thick  buckskin,  for  there  was  much  heavy  work 
to  be  done  in  the  forest  and  on  the  land.  The  skin 
was  tanned  in  Indian  fashion,  by  rubbing  into  the 
flesh  side  the  brains  of  the  deer  —  though  how  the 
Indians  ever  thought  of  using  them  is  a  mystery. 
Later,  the  white  folk  tried  to  tan  with  pigs'  brains ; 
but  however  valuable  the  brains  of  a  pig  may  be 
to  himself,  they  do  not  contain  the  properties  of 
soda  ash  which  made  those  of  the  deer  useful  for 
this  purpose. 

Years  ago,  when  a  man  set  out  to  manufacture 
gloves,  usually  only  a  few  dozen  pairs,  he  cut  out 
a  pattern  from  a  shingle  or  a  piece  of  pasteboard, 
laid  it  upon  a  skin,  marked  around  it,  and  cut  it  out 
with  shears.  Pencils  were  not  common,  but  the 
glovemaker  was  fully  equal  to  making  his  own.  He 
melted  some  lead,  ran  it  into  a  crack  in  the  kitchen 
floor  —  and  cracks  were  plentiful  —  and  then  used 


CUTTING  HIDES  INTO  GLOVES 

The  hides  are  kept  in  racks,  and  before  cutting  are  stretched  by  hand.     Then  the  steel 
die  cuts  out  the  shape  of  the  glove.     Notice  the  curiously  shaped  cut  for  the  thumb. 


i8          MAKERS  OF  MANY  THINGS 

this  "plummet,"  as  it  was  called,  for  a  marker. 
After  cutting  the  large  piece  for  the  front  and  back 
of  the  glove,  he  cut  out  from  the  scraps  remaining 
the  "fourchettes,"  or  forks;  that  is,  the  narrow 
strips  that  make  the  sides  of  the  fingers.  Smaller 
scraps  were  put  in  to  welt  the  seams;  and  all  this 
went  off  in  great  bundles  to  farmhouses  to  be 
sewed  by  the  farmers'  wives  and  daughters  for  the 
earning  of  pin-money.  If  the  gloves  were  to  be  the 
most  genteel  members  of  the  buckskin  race,  there 
was  added  to  the  bundle  a  skein  of  silk,  with  which 
a  slender  vine  was  to  be  worked  on  the  back  of  the 
hand.  The  sewing  was  done  with  a  needle  three- 
sided  at  the  point,  and  a  stout  waxed  thread  was 
used.  A  needle  of  this  sort  went  in  more  easily  than 
a  round  one,  but  even  then  it  was  rather  weari- 
some to  push  it  through  three  thicknesses  of  stout 
buckskin.  Moreover,  if  the  sewer  happened  to 
take  hold  of  the  needle  too  near  the  point,  the 
sharp  edges  were  likely  to  make  little  cuts  in  her 
fingers. 

After  a  while  sewing  machines  were  invented, 
and  factories  were  built,  and  now  in  a  single  county 
of  the  State  of  New  York  many  thousand  people 
are  at  work  making  various  kinds  of  leather  cover- 
ings for  their  own  hands  and  those  of  other  folk. 
Better  methods  of  tanning  have  been  discovered, 
and  many  sorts  of  leather  are  now  used,  especially 
for  the  heavier  gloves.  Deer  are  not  so  common  as 
they  used  to  be,  and  a  " buckskin"  glove  is  quite 
likely  to  have  been  made  of  the  hide  of  a  cow  or  a 


"KID"  GLOVES  19 

horse.  "Kid"  generally  comes  from  the  body  of  a 
sheep  instead  of  that  of  a  young  goat.  Our  best  real 
kidskin  comes  from  a  certain  part  of  France,  where 
the  climate  seems  to  be  just  suited  to  the  young 
kids,  there  is  plenty  of  the  food  that  they  like,  and, 
what  is  fully  as  important,  they  receive  the  best 
of  care.  It  is  said  that  to  produce  the  very  finest 
kidskin,  the  kids  are  fed  on  nothing  but  milk,  are 
treated  with  the  utmost  gentleness,  and  are  kept  in 
coops  or  pens  carefully  made  so  that  there  shall 
be  nothing  to  scratch  their  tender  skins. 

Glovemakers  are  always  on  the  lookout  for  new 
kinds  of  material,  and  when,  not  many  years  ago, 
there  came  from  Arabia  with  a  shipment  of  Mocha 
coffee  two  bales  of  an  unknown  sort  of  skin,  they 
were  eager  to  try  it.  It  tanned  well  and  made  a 
glove  that  has  been  a  favorite  from  the  first.  The 
skin  was  found  to  come  from  a  sheep  living  in 
Arabia,  Abyssinia,  and  near  the  headwaters  of  the 
river  Nile.  It  was  named  Mocha  from  the  coffee 
with  which  it  came,  and  Mocha  it  has  been  ever 
since.  The  Suede  glove  has  a  surface  much  like  that 
of  the  Mocha.  Its  name  came  from  "Swede,"  be- 
cause the  Swedes  were  the  first  to  use  the  skin  with 
the  outside  in. 

Most  of  our  thinner  "kid"  gloves  are  made  of 
lambskin;  but  dressing  the  skins  is  now  done  so 
skillfully  in  this  country  that  "homemade"  gloves 
are  in  many  respects  fully  as  good  as  the  imported ; 
indeed,  some  judges  declare  that  in  shape  and  stitch- 
ing certain  grades  are  better.  When  sheepskins  and 


20          MAKERS  OF  MANY  THINGS 

lambskins  come  to  market  from  a  distance,  they  are 
salted.  They  have  to  be  soaked  in  water,  all  bits 
of  flesh  scraped  off,  and  the  hair  removed,  gener- 
ally by  the  use  of  lime.  After  another  washing,  they 
are  put  into  alum  and  salt  for  a  few  minutes;  and 
after  washing  this  off,  they  are  dried,  stretched, 
and  then  are  ready  for  the  softening.  Nothing  has 
been  found  that  will  soften  the  skins  so  perfectly 
as  a  mixture  of  flour,  salt,  and  the  yolk  of  eggs  — 
"custard,"  as  the  workmen  call  it.  The  custard  and 
the  skins  are  tumbled  together  into  a  great  iron 
drum  which  revolves  till  the  custard  has  been  ab- 
sorbed and  the  skins  are  soft  and  yielding.  Now 
they  are  stretched  one  way  and  another,  and  wet 
so  thoroughly  that  they  lose  all  the  alum  and  salt 
that  may  be  left  and  also  much  of  the  custard. 

Now  comes  dyeing.  The  skin  is  laid  upon  a  table, 
smooth  side  up,  and  brushed  over  several  times  with 
the  coloring  matter;  very  lightly,  however,  for  if  the 
coloring  goes  through  the  leather,  the  hands  of  the 
customers  may  be  stained  and  they  will  buy  no  more 
gloves  of  that  make.  The  skins  are  now  moistened 
and  rolled  and  left  for  several  weeks  to  season. 
When  they  are  unrolled,  the  whole  skin  is  soft  and 
pliable.  It  is  thick,  however,  and  no  one  who  is 
not  an  expert  can  thin  it  properly.  The  process  is 
called  " mooning"  because  the  knife  used  is  shaped 
like  a  crescent  moon.  It  is  flat,  its  center  is  cut  out, 
and  the  outer  edge  is  sharpened.  Over  the  inner 
curve  is  a  handle.  The  skin  is  hung  on  a  pole,  and 
the  expert  workman  draws  the  mooning  knife  down 


CLOSING  THE  GLOVE 

When  sewing  time  comes,  the  glove  goes  from  hand  to  hand  down  the  workroom,  each 
stitcher  doing  a  certain  seam  or  seams. 


WHERE  THE  GLOVE   GETS   ITS   SHAPE 

After  inspection  the  glove  goes  to   a  row  of  men  who  fit  it   on  a   steam-heated  brass 
hand,  giving  it  its  final  shape  and  finish. 


22  MAKERS  OF  MANY  THINGS 

it  until  any  bit  of  dried  flesh  remaining  has  been 
removed,  and  the  skin  is  of  the  same  thickness,  or, 
rather,  thinness  throughout. 

All  this  slow,  careful  work  is  needed  to  prepare 
the  skin  for  cutting  out  the  glove;  and  now  it  goes 
to  the  cutter.  There  is  no  longer  any  cutting  out  of 
gloves  with  shears  and  pasteboard  patterns,  but 
there  is  a  quick  way  and  a  slow  way  nevertheless. 
The  man  who  cuts  in  the  quick  way,  the  "  block- 
cutter,"  as  he  is  called,  spreads  out  the  skin  on  a  big 
block  made  by  bolting  together  planks  of  wood 
with  the  grain  running  up  and  down.  He  places  a 
die  in  the  shape  of  the  glove  upon  the  leather,  gives 
one  blow  with  a  heavy  maul,  and  the  glove  is  cut  out. 
This  answers  very  well  for  the  cheaper  and  coarser 
gloves,  but  to  cut  fine  gloves  is  quite  a  different 
matter.  This  needs  skill,  and  it  is  said  that  no  man 
can  do  good  "  table-cutting "  who  has  not  had 
at  least  three  years'  experience;  and  even  then  he 
may  not  be  able  to  do  really  first-class  work.  He 
dampens  the  skin,  stretches  it  first  one  way  and 
then  the  other,  and  examines  it  closely  for  flaws  or 
scratches  or  weak  places.  He  must  put  on  his  die 
in  such  a  way  as  to  get  two  pairs  of  ordinary  gloves 
or  one  pair  of  " elbow  gloves"  out  of  the  skin  if  pos- 
sible, and  yet  he  must  avoid  "the  poor  places  if  there 
are  any.  No  glove  manufacturer  can  afford  to  em- 
ploy an  unskilled  or  careless  cutter,  for  he  will 
waste  much  more  than  his  wages  amount  to.  There 
used  to  be  one  die  for  the  right  hand  and  another 
for  the  left,  and  it  was  some  time  before  it  occurred 


"KID"   GLOVES  23 

to  any  one  that  the  same  die  would  cut  both  gloves 
if  only  the  skin  was  turned  over. 

Now  comes  the  sewing.  Count  the  pieces  in  a 
glove,  and  this  will  give  some  idea  of  the  work 
needed  to  sew  them  together.  Notice  that  the  four- 
chettes  are  sewed  together  on  the  wrong  side,  the 
other  seams  on  the  right  side,  and  that  the  tiny 
bits  of  facing  and  lining  are  hemmed  down  by  hand. 
Notice  that  two  of  the  fingers  have  only  one  four- 
chette,  while  the  others  have  two  fourchettes  each. 
Notice  how  neatly  the  ends  of  the  fingers  are  fin- 
ished, with  never  an  end  of  thread  left  on  the  right 
side.  The  embroidery  must  be  in  exactly  the  right 
place,  and  it  must  be  fastened  firmly  at  both  ends. 
This  embroidery  is  not  a  meaningless  fashion,  for 
the  lines  make  the  hand  look  much  more  slender  and 
of  a  better  shape.  Sewing  in  the  thumbs  needs 
special  care  and  skill.  There  must  be  no  puckering, 
and  the  seam  must  not  be  so  tightly  drawn  as  to 
leave  a  red  line  on  the  hand  when  the  glove  is  taken 
off.  No  one  person  does  all  the  sewing  on  a  glove; 
it  must  pass  through  a  number  of  hands,  each  doing 
a  little.  Even  after  all  the  care  that  is  given  it,  a 
glove  is  a  shapeless  thing  when  it  comes  from  the 
sewing  machines.  It  is  now  carried  to  a  room 
where  stands  a  long  table  with  a  rather  startling 
row  of  brass  hands  of  different  sizes  stretching  up 
from  it.  These  are  heated,  the  gloves  are  drawn 
upon  them,  and  in  a  moment  they  have  shape  and 
finish,  and  are  ready  to  be  inspected  and  sold. 

The  glove  is  so  closely  associated  with  the  hand 


24          MAKERS  OF  MANY  THINGS 

and  with  the  person  to  whom  the  hand  belongs  that 
in  olden  times  it  was  looked  upon  as  representing 
him.  When,  for  instance,  a  fair  could  not  be  opened 
without  the  presence  of  some  noble,  it  was  enough 
if  he  sent  his  glove  to  represent  him.  To  throw  down 
one's  glove  before  a  man  was  to  challenge  him  to  a 
combat.  At  the  coronation  of  Queen  Elizabeth,  as 
of  many  other  sovereigns  of  England,  the  "Queen's 
champion,"  a  knight  in  full  armor,  rode  into  the 
great  hall  and  threw  down  his  glove,  crying,  "If 
there  be  any  manner  of  man  that  will  say  and 
maintain  that  our  sovereign  Lady,  Queen  Eliza- 
beth, is  not  the  rightful  and  undoubted  inheritrix 
to  the  imperial  crown  of  this  realm  of  England,  I 
say  he  lieth  like  a  false  traitor,  and  therefore  I  cast 
him  my  gage." 


IV 

HOW  RAGS  AND  TREES  BECOME  PAPER 

IT  was  a  great  day  for  the  children  on  the  farm 
when  the  tin  peddler  came  around.  He  had  a  high 
red  wagon,  fairly  bristling  with  brooms,  mop-han- 
dles, washtubs,  water-pails,  and  brushes.  When  he 
opened  his  mysterious  drawers  and  caverns,  the 
sunshine  flashed  upon  tin  pans,  dippers,  dustpans, 
and  basins.  Put  away  rather  more  choicely  were 
wooden-handled  knives,  two-tined  forks,  and  dishes 
of  glass  and  china;  and  sometimes  little  tin  cups 
painted  red  or  blue  and  charmingly  gilded,  or  cooky- 
cutters  in  the  shape  of  dogs  and  horses.  All  these 
rare  and  delightful  articles  he  was  willing  to  ex- 
change for  rags.  Is  it  any  wonder  that  the  thrifty 
housewife  saved  her  rags  with  the  utmost  care,  keep- 
ing one  bag  for  white  clippings  and  one  for  colored  ? 

These  peddlers  were  the  great  dependence  of  the 
paper  mills,  for  the  finest  paper  is  made  from  linen 
and  cotton  rags.  When  the  rags  reach  the  factory, 
they  are  carefully  sorted.  All  day  long  the  sorters 
sit  before  tables  whose  tops  are  covered  with  coarse 
wire  screens,  and  from  masses  of  rags  they  pick  out 
buttons,  hooks  and  eyes,  pins,  bits  of  rubber,  and 
anything  else  that  cannot  possibly  be  made  into 
paper.  At  the  same  time  they  sort  the  rags  care- 
fully into  different  grades,  and  with  a  knife  shaped 
like  a  small  sickle  fastened  upright  to  the  table  they 


26  MAKERS  OF  MANY  THINGS 

cut  them  into  small  pieces.  Some  of  the  dust  falls 
through  the  screen;  but  to  remove  the  rest  of  it, 
the  cut-up  rags  are  tossed  about  in  a  wire  drum. 
Sometimes  they  are  so  dusty  that  when  they  come 
out  of  the  drum  they  weigh  only  nine  tenths  as 
much  as  when  they  go  in.  The  dust  is  out  of  them, 
but  not  the  dirt.  To  remove  that,  they  are  now 
put  into  great  boilers  full  of  steam;  and  here  they 
cook  and  turn  over,  and  turn  over  and  cook  for 
hours.  Lime  and  sometimes  soda  are  put  with  them 
to  cleanse  them  and  remove  the  coloring  material; 
but  when  they  are  poured  out,  they  look  anything 
but  clean,  for  they  are  of  a  particularly  dirty  brown; 
and  the  water  that  is  drained  away  from  them  looks 
even  more  uninteresting.  Of  course  the  next  step 
is  to  wash  this  dirty  brown  mass;  and  for  at  least 
four  hours  it  is  scrubbed  in  a  machine  which  beats 
it  and  rolls  it  and  chops  it  and  tumbles  it  about 
until  the  wonder  is  that  anything  is  left  of  it.  All 
this  while,  the  water  has  been  flowing  through  it, 
coming  in  clean  and  going  out  dirty ;  and  at  length 
the  mass  becomes  so  light  a  gray  that  making  white 
paper  of  it  does  not  seem  quite  hopeless.  It  is  now 
bleached  with  chloride  of  lime,  and  washed  till  it  is 
of  a  creamy  white  color  and  free  from  the  lime,  and 
then  beaten  again.  If  you  fold  a  piece  of  cheap 
paper  and  tear  it  at  the  fojd,  it  will  tear  easily;  but 
if  you  do  the  same  thing  with  paper  made  of  linen 
and  cotton,  you  will  find  it  decidedly  tough.  More- 
over, if  you  look  closely  at  the  torn  edge  of  the 
latter,  you  will  see  the  fibers  clearly.  It  is  because 


HOW  PAPER  IS   MADE  27 

of  the  beating  that  the  fibers  are  so  matted  together 
and  thus  make  the  paper  tough.  While  the  pulp  is 
in  the  beater,  the  manufacturer  puts  in  the  coloring 
matter,  if  he  wishes  it  to  be  tinted  blue  or  rose  or 
lavender  or  any  other  color.  No  one  would  guess 
that  this  white  or  creamy  or  azure  liquid  had  ever 
been  the  dirty  rags  that  came  into  the  mill  and  were 
sorted  on  the  wire  tables.  Besides  the  coloring,  a 
"filler"  is  usually  added  at  this  time,  such  as  kaolin, 
the  fine  clay  of  which  china  is  made.  This  fills  the 
pores  and  gives  a  smoother  surface  to  the  finished 
paper  —  a  good  thing  if  too  much  is  not  put  in.  A 
little  sizing  is  also  added,  made  of  rosin.  Save  for 
this  sizing,  ink  would  sink  into  even  the  finished 
paper  as  it  does  into  blotting  paper.  After  this, 
more  water  is  added  to  the  pulp  and  it  is  run  into 
tanks. 

Now  the  preparation  is  completed,  and  the  pulp  is 
pumped  to  large  and  complicated  machines  which 
undertake  to  make  it  into  paper.  It  first  flows 
through  screens  which  are  shaken  all  the  while  as 
if  they  were  trembling.  This  shaking  lets  the  liquid 
and  the  finer  fibers  through,  but  holds  back  the 
little  lumps,  if  any  remain  after  all  the  beating  and 
straining  and  cutting  that  it  has  had.  The  pulp 
flows  upon  an  endless  wire  screen.  Rubber  straps 
at  the  sides  keep  it  in,  but  the  extra  water  drops 
through  the  meshes.  The  pulp  is  flowing  onward, 
and  so  the  tiny  fibers  would  naturally  straighten 
out  and  flow  with  it,  like  sticks  in  a  river;  but  the 
wire  screen  is  kept  shaking  sideways,  and  this  helps 


28          MAKERS  OF  MANY  THINGS 

the  fibers  to  interlace,  and  the  paper  becomes  nearly 
as  strong  one  way  as  the  other. 

If  you  hold  a  sheet  of  paper  up  to  the  light,  it  will 
show  plainly  what  is  next  done  to  it.  Sometimes 
you  can  see  that  it  is  marked  by  light  parallel  lines 
running  across  it  close  together,  and  crossed  by 
other  and  stouter  lines  an  inch  or  two  apart.  Some- 
times the  name  of  the  paper  or  that  of  the  manu- 
facturer is  marked  in  the  same  way  by  letters  lighter 
than  the  rest  of  the  sheet.  Sometimes  the  paper 
is  plain  with  no  markings  whatever.  This  differ- 
ence is  made  by  what  is  called  the  "  dandy,"  a  cyl- 
inder covered  with  wire.  For  the  first,  or  "laid" 
paper,  the  small  wires  run  the  length  of  the  cylinder 
and  the  stouter  ones  around  it.  Wherever  the  wires 
are,  the  paper  is  a  little  thinner.  In  some  papers 
this  thinness  can  be  seen  and  felt.  For  the  second 
kind  of  paper  the  design,  or  "watermark,"  is  formed 
by  wires  a  little  thicker  than  the  rest  of  the  cover- 
ing. For  the  third,  or  "wove"  paper,  the  dandy 
is  covered  with  plain  woven  wire  like  that  of  the 
wire  cloth;  so  there  are  no  markings  at  all.  This 
work  can  be  easily  done  because  at  this  point  the 
paper  is  so  moist. 

The  paper  is  now  not  in  sheets,  but  in  a  long  web 
like  a  web  of  cloth.  It  passes  between  felt-covered 
rollers  to  press  out  all  the  water  possible,  then  over 
steam-heated  cylinders  to  be  dried,  finally  going 
between  cold  iron  rollers  to  be  made  smooth,  and  is 
wound  on  a  reel,  trimmed  and  cut  into  sheets  of 
whatever  size  is  desired.  The  finest  note  papers 


HOW  PAPER  IS  MADE  29 

are  not  finished  in  this  way,  but  are  partly  dried, 
passed  through  a  vat  of  thin  glue,  any  excess  being 
squeezed  off  by  rollers,  then  cut  into  sheets,  and 
hung  up  to  dry  thoroughly  at  their  leisure. 

Paper  made  of  properly  prepared  linen  and  cot- 
ton is  by  far  the  best,  but  there  are  so  many  ne\\ 
uses  for  paper  that  there  are  not  rags  enough  in  the 
world  to  make  nearly  what  is  needed.  There  are 
scores  of  newspapers  and  magazines  where  there 
used  to  be  one;  and  as  for  paper  bags  and  cartons 
and  boxes,  there  is  no  limit  to  their  number  and 
variety.  A  single  manufacturer  of  pens  and  pencils 
calls  for  four  thousand  different  sorts  and  sizes  of 
boxes.  School-children's .  use  of  paper  instead  of 
slates,  the  fashion  of  wrapping  Christmas  gifts  in 
white  tissue,  and  the  invention  of  the  low-priced 
cameras  have  increased  enormously  the  amount  of 
paper  called  for.  In  the  attempt  to  supply  the  de- 
mand all  sorts  of  materials  have  been  used,  such  as 
hemp,  old  rope,  peat,  the  stems  of  flax,  straw,  the 
Spanish  and  African  esparto  grass,  and  especially 
wood ;  but  much  more  paper  is  made  of  wood  than 
of  all  the  rest  together.  Poplar,  gum,  and  chestnut 
trees,  and  especially  those  trees  which  bear  cones, 
such  as  the  spruce,  fir,  balsam,  and  pine  are  used. 
There  are  two  methods  of  manufacturing  wood 
pulp;  the  mechanical,  by  grinding  up  the  wood,  and 
the  chemical,  by  treating  it  chemically.  By  the 
mechanical  method  the  wood  is  pressed  against  a 
large  grindstone  which  revolves  at  a  high  speed.  As 
fast  as  the  wood  is  ground  off,  it  is  washed  away  by 


30          MAKERS  OF  MANY  THINGS 

a  current  of  water,  and  strained  through  a  shaking 
sieve  and  a  revolving  screen  which  drives  out  part  of 
the  water  by  centrifugal  force.  In  a  great  vat  of  pulp 
a  drum  covered  with  wire  cloth  revolves,  and  on  it 
a  thin  sheet  of  pulp  settles.  Felting,  pressed  against 
this  sheet,  carries  it  onward  through  rolls.  The 
sheets  are  pressed  between  coarse  sacking.  Such 
paper  is  very  poor  stuff.  In  its  manufacture  the  fiber 
of  the  wood  is  so  ground  up  that  it  has  little  strength. 
It  is  used  for  cardboard,  cartons,  and  packing-papers. 
Unfortunately,  it  is  also  used  for  newspapers;  and 
while  it  is  a  good  thing  for  some  of  them  to  drop  to 
pieces,  it  is  a  great  loss  not  to  have  the  others  perma- 
nent. When  we  wish  to  know  what  people  thought 
about  any  event  fifty  years  ago,  we  can  look  back 
to  the  papers  of  that  time;  but  when  people  fifty 
years  from  now  wish  to  learn  what  we  thought,  many 
of  the  newspapers  will  have  fallen  to  pieces  long  be- 
fore that  time. 

There  is,  however,  a  method  called  the  "  sulphite 
process,"  used  principally  in  treating  the  coniferous 
woods,  by  which  a  much  better  paper  can  be  made. 
In  all  plants  there  is  a  substance  called  "cellulose." 
This  is  what  gives  strength  to  their  stems.  The 
wood  is  chipped  and  put  into  digesters  large  enough 
to  hold  twenty  tons,  and  is  steam-cooked  together 
with  bisulphite  of  magnesium  or  calcium  for  seven 
or  eight  hours.  Another  method  used  for  cooking 
such  woods  as  poplar  and  gum,  is  to  boil  the  wood 
in  caustic  soda,  which  destroys  everything  except 
the  cellulose.  Wood  paper  of  one  kind  or  another 


Courtesy  S.  D.  Warren  Co. 

WHERE  RAGS   BECOME  PAPER 

The  vat  where  the  rags  cook  and  turn  over,  and  the  big  room  where  the  web  of  finished 
paper  is  passed  through  rollers  and  cut  into  a  neat  pile  of  trimmed  sheets. 


32          MAKERS  OF  MANY  THINGS 

is  used  for  all  daily  papers  and  for  most  books. 
Whether  the  best  wood  paper  will  last  as  long  as  the 
best  rag  paper,  time  only  can  tell. 

The  Government  of  the  United  States  tests  paper 
in  several  ways  before  buying  it.  First,  a  single 
sheet  is  weighed;  then  a  ream  is  put  on  the  scales 
to  see  if  it  weighs  four  hundred  and  eighty  times  as 
much.  This  shows  whether  the  paper  runs  evenly 
in  weight.  Many  sheets  are  folded  together  and 
measured  to  see  if  the  thickness  is  regular.  To  test 
its  strength,  a  sheet  is  clamped  over  a  hole  one 
square  inch  in  area,  and  liquid  is  pressed  against  it 
from  below  to  see  how  much  it  will  stand  before 
bursting.  Strips  of  the  paper  are  pulled  in  a  machine 
to  test  its  breaking  strength.  A  sheet  is  folded  over 
and  over  again  to  see  whether  holes  will  appear  at 
the  corners  of  the  folds.  It  is  examined  under  the 
microscope  to  see  of  what  kind  of  fibers  it  is  made 
and  how  much  loading  has  been  used  in  its  manu- 
facture. To  test  blotting  paper,  strips  are  also  put 
into  water  to  see  how  high  the  water  will  rise  on 
them. 

Besides  writing  and  wrapping  papers  and  the 
various  kinds  of  board,  there  are  many  sorts  which 
are  used  for  special  purposes.  India  paper,  for 
instance,  is  light,  smooth,  and  strong,  so  opaque 
that  printing  will  not  show  through  it,  and  so  last- 
ing that  if  it  is  crumpled,  it  can  be  ironed  out  and 
be  as  good  as  new.  This  is  used  for  books  that  are 
expected  to  have  hard  wear  but  must  be  of  light 
weight.  There  are  tissue  papers,  crepe  papers  for 


HOW  PAPER  IS   MADE  33 

napkins,  and  tarred  paper  to  make  roofs  and  even 
boats  water-tight.  If  tar  is  brushed  on,  it  may  make 
bubbles  which  will  break  afterwards  and  let  water 
in;  but  if  tar  is  made  a  part  of  the  paper  itself,  it 
lasts.  Paper  can  easily  be  waxed  or  paraffined,  and 
will  then  keep  out  air  and  moisture  for  some  time. 
Better  still,  it  can  be  treated  with  oil  and  will  then 
make  a  raincoat  that  will  stand  a  year's  wear,  or 
even,  if  put  on  a  bamboo  frame,  make  a  very  good 
house,  as  the  Japanese  found  out  long  ago.  Paper 
coated  with  powdered  gum  and  tin  is  used  for  pack- 
ing tea  and  coffee.  Transfer  or  carbon  papers  so 
much  used  in  making  several  copies  of  an  article 
on  the  typewriter  are  made  by  coating  paper  with 
starch,  flour,  gum,  and  coloring  matter.  Paper  can 
be  used  for  shoes  and  hats,  ties,  collars,  and  even 
for  "rubbers."  It  has  been  successfully  used  for 
sails  for  light  vessels,  and  is  excellent  made  into 
light  garments  for  hospital  use  because  it  is  so  cheap 
that  it  can  be  burned  after  wearing.  Wood  pulp 
can  be  run  through  fine  tubes  into  water  and  made 
so  pliable  that  it  can  be  twisted  into  cord  or  spun 
and  woven  into  "silk."  Not  only  water  but  also 
fire  can  be  kept  out  by  paper  if  it  is  treated  with  the 
proper  substances.  An  object  can  be  covered  with 
a  paste  of  wood  pulp,  silica,  and  hemp;  and  when 
this  is  dry,  a  coat  of  water-glass  will  afford  consid- 
erable protection.  There  has  been  some  degree  of 
success  in  making  transparent  paper  films  for 
moving  pictures ;  and  if  these  are  coated  with  water- 
glass,  they  will  not  burn.  Paper  can  be  so  treated 


34          MAKERS  OF  MANY  THINGS 

that  it  will  either  conduct  electricity  or  become  a 
nonconductor,  as  may  be  desired.  In  Germany,  a 
"sandwich  paper"  has  been  made  by  pressing  to- 
gether four  layers  —  felt,  pulp,  cotton,  pulp  — 
which  is  cheap  and  strong  and  useful  for  many 
purposes. 

When  we  come  to  papier  mache,  there  is  no  end 
to  the  kinds  of  articles  that  are  made  of  it.  The 
papier  mache,  or  paper  pulped,  is  made  by  kneading 
old  newspapers  or  wrapping  papers  with  warm 
water  into  a  pulp.  Clay  and  coloring  are  added  and 
something  of  the  nature  of  glue;  and  it  is  then  put 
into  a  mould.  Sometimes  to  make  it  stronger  for 
large  mouldings,  bits  of  canvas  or  even  wire  are  also 
used.  The  best  papier  mache  is  made  of  pure  wood 
cellulose.  The  beautiful  boxes  and  trays  covered 
with  lacquer  which  the  Japanese  and  Chinese 
make  are  formed  of  this;  but  it  has  many  much 
humbler  uses  than  these.  Paper  screws  are  em- 
ployed in  ornamental  wood  work,  and  if  a  hole  is 
begun  for  such  a  screw,  it  will  twist  its  way  into  soft 
wood  as  well  as  steel  would  do.  Barrels  of  paper 
reinforced  with  wire  are  common.  Gear  wheels  and 
belt  pulleys  are  made  of  papier  mache,  and  even 
the  wheels  of  railroad  coaches;  at  least  the  body 
of  the  wheels  is  made  of  it,  although  the  tire,  hub, 
and  axle  are  of  cast-steel.  Circular  saws  of  pulp  are 
in  use  which  cut  thin  slices  of  veneer  so  smoothly 
that  they  can  be  used  without  planing.  Papier 
mache  is  used  for  water  pipes,  the  bodies  of  car- 
riages, hencoops,  and  garages.  Indeed,  it  is  quite 


HOW  PAPER  IS   MADE  35 

possible  to  build  a  house,  shingle  it,  decorate  it  with 
elaborate  mouldings  and  cornices,  finish  it  with 
panels,  wainscoting,  imitation  tiling,  and  furnish 
it  with  light,  comfortable  furniture  covered  with 
imitation  leather,  silk,  or  cloth,  and  spread  on  its 
floors  soft,  thick  carpets  or  rugs  woven  in  beautiful 
designs  —  and  all  made  of  wood  pulp.  Even  the 
window  panes  could  be  made  of  pulp;  and  if  they 
were  not  perfectly  transparent,  they  would  at  least 
let  in  a  soft,  agreeable  light,  and  they  would  not 
break.  Pails,  washtubs,  bathtubs,  and  even  dishes 
of  paper  can  be  easily  found.  There  are  not  only 
the  paper  cups  provided  on  railroad  trains  and  the 
cheap  picnic  plates  and  saucers,  but  some  that  are 
really  pretty.  Ice  cream  is  sometimes  served  in 
paper  dishes  and  eaten  with  paper  spoons.  Milk 
bottles  are  successfully  made  of  paper,  with  a  long 
strip  of  some  transparent  material  running  up  and 
down  the  side  to  show  how  much  —  or  how  little 

—  cream  is  within.    Napkins  and  tablecloths  made 
of  paper  thread  woven  into  "cloth"  are  cheaper 
than  linen  and  can  be  washed  as  easily.  Paper  towels 
and    dishcloths    are    already    common;   but   when 
paper  shall  fully  come  to  its  own,  it  is  quite  possible 
that  there  will  be  little  washing  of  dishes.    They 
can  be  as  pretty  as  any  one  could  wish,  but  so  cheap 
that  after  each  meal  they  can  be  dropped  into  the 
fire.    Indeed,  there  are  few  things  in  a  house,  except 
a  stove,  that  cannot  be  made  of  some  form  of  paper, 

—  and  perhaps  that  too  will  be  some  day. 


HOW  BOOKS  ARE  MADE 

THE  first  step  in  making  ready  to  print  a  manu- 
script is  to  find  out  how  many  words  there  are  in  it, 
what  kind  of  type  to  use,  how  much  "leading"  or 
space  between  the  lines  there  shall  be,  and  what 
shall  be  the  size  of  the  page.  In  deciding  these  ques- 
tions, considerable  thinking  has  to  be  done.  If  the 
manuscript  is  a  short  story  by  a  popular  author,  it 
may  be  printed  with  wide  margins  and  wide  leading 
in  order  to  make  a  book  of  fair  size.  If  it  is  a  lengthy 
manuscript  which  will  be  likely  to  sell  at  a  moder- 
ate but  not  a  high  price,  it  is  best  to  use  only  as 
much  leading  as  is  necessary  to  make  the  line  stand 
out  clearly,  and  to  print  with  a  margin  not  so  wide 
as  to  increase  the  expense  of  the  book.  The  printer 
prints  a  sample  of  the  page  decided  upon,  any 
desired  changes  are  made,  and  then  the  making  of 
the  book  begins. 

The  type  is  kept  in  a  case  at  which  the  composi- 
tor stands.  This  case  is  divided  into  shallow  com- 
partments, each  compartment  containing  a  great 
many  e's  or  m's  as  the  case  may  be.  The  "upper 
case"  contains  capitals;  the  "lower  case,"  small 
letters.  Those  letters  which  are  used  most  often 
are  put  where  the  compositor  can  reach  them  most 
readily.  He  stands  before  his  case  with  a  "compos- 


Court tij  The  Riverside  Press. 

WHERE  THIS   BOOK  WAS  SET  UP 

The  monotype  girl  wrote  these  words  on  her  keyboard,  where  they  made  tiny  holes  in  a 
roll  of  paper.  The  roll  went  to  the  casting-room  where  it  guided  a  machine  to  make  the 
type  much  as  a  perforated  music-roll  guides  a  piano  to  play  a  tune. 


38          MAKERS  OF  MANY  THINGS 

ing  stick"  in  his  hand.  This  " stick"  is  a  little  iron 
frame  with  a  slide  at  the  side,  so  that  the  line  can 
be  made  of  any  length  desired.  The  workman  soon 
learns  where  each  letter  is,  and  even  an  apprentice 
can  set  the  type  in  his  stick  reasonably  rapidly.  On 
one  side  of  every  piece  of  type  there  is  a  groove,  so 
that  he  can  tell  by  touch  whether  it  is  right  side  up 
or  not.  He  must  look  out  especially  to  make  his 
right-hand  margins  regular.  You  will  notice  in 
books  that  the  lines  are  all  of  the  same  length,  al- 
though they  do  not  contain  the  same  number  of 
letters.  The  compositor  brings  this  about  by  ar- 
ranging his  words  and  spaces  skillfully.  The  spaces 
must  be  as  nearly  as  possible  of  the  same  length,  and 
yet  the  line  must  be  properly  filled.  If  a  line  is  too 
full,  he  can  sometimes  place  the  last  syllable  on  the 
following  line;  if  it  is  not  full  enough,  he  can  borrow 
a  syllable,  and  he  can  at  least  divide  his  space  so 
evenly  that  the  line  will  not  look  as  if  it  were  broken 
in  two. 

Not  many  years  ago  all  type  was  set  in  this  man- 
ner; but  several  machines  have  now  been  invented 
which  will  do  this  work.  In  one  of  the  best  of  them 
the  operator  sits  before  a  keyboard  much  like  that 
of  a  typewriter.  When  he  presses  key  a,  for  in- 
stance, a  mould  or  matrix  of  the  letter  a  is  set  free 
from  a  tube  of  a's,  and  slides  down  to  its  place  in 
the  stick.  At  the  end  of  the  line,  the  matrices  form- 
ing it  are  carried  in  front  of  a  slot  where  melted 
type  metal  from  a  reservoir  meets  them.  Thus  a 
cast  is  made  of  the  matrices,  and  from  this  cast  the 


HOW  BOOKS  ARE   MADE  39 

printing  is  done.  This  machine  is  called  a  linotype 
because  it  casts  a  whole  line  of  type  at  a  time. 

Most  book  work  is  done  on  the  monotype  ma- 
chine. When  a  manuscript  goes  to  the  press  to  be 
set  up  in  this  way,  the  copy  is  given  to  the  key- 
board operator  who  sets  it  up  on  a  machine  which 
looks  much  like  a  typewriter.  Instead  of  writing 
letters,  however,  the  machine  punches  tiny  holes 
in  a  strip  of  paper  which  is  wound  on  a  roll.  When 
the  roll  is  full  it  goes  to  the  casting  room  where  it 
is  put  on  another  machine  containing  hot  type 
metal  and  bronze  matrices  from  which  the  letters  of 
the  words  are  to  be  cast.  The  holes  in  the  paper 
guide  the  machine  to  make  the  type  much  as  a 
perforated  music  roll  guides  a  piano  to  play  a  tune. 
The  reason  why  the  machine  is  called  a  monotype 
is  that  the  letters  are  made  one  at  a  time,  and  monos 
is  the  Greek  word  for  one. 

By  the  linotype  and  monotype  machines  type 
can  be  set  in  a  "galley,"  a  narrow  tray  about  two 
feet  long,  with  ledges  on  three  sides.  When  a  con- 
venient number  of  these  galleys  have  been  filled, 
long  slips  are  printed  from  them  called  "galley 
proofs."  These  have  wide  margins,  but  the  print  is 
of  the  width  that  the  page  of  the  book  will  be.  They 
are  read  by  the  proof-readers,  and  all  such  mistakes 
as  the  slipping  in  of  a  wrong  letter,  or  a  broken  type, 
the  repetition  of  a  word,  or  the  omission  of  space 
between  words  are  corrected.  Then  the  proof  goes 
to  the  author,  who  makes  any  changes  in  his  part 
of  the  work  which  seem  to  him  desirable;  and  it  is 


40          MAKERS  OF  MANY  THINGS 

also  read  by  some  member  of  the  editorial  depart- 
ment. If  there  are  many  changes  to  be  made,  an- 
other proof  is  usually  taken  and  sent  to  the  author. 

The  reason  for  this  extreme  carefulness  is  that  it 
costs  much  less  to  make  changes  in  the  galley  proof 
than  in  the  "page  proof."  This  latter  is  made  by 
dividing  the  galley  into  pages,  leaving  space  for  the 
beginnings  of  chapters  and  for  pictures,  if  any  are 
to  appear  on  the  printed  pages,  and  setting  up  the 
numbers  of  the  pages  and  their  running  titles.  Page 
proof  also  goes  to  proof-readers  and  to  the  author. 
Corrections  on  page  proof  are  more  expensive  than 
on  galley  proof  because  adding  or  striking  out  even 
a  few  words  may  make  it  necessary  to  change  the 
arrangement  on  every  page  to  the  end  of  the  chap- 
ter. 

Years  ago  all  books  were  printed  directly  from 
the  type ;  and  some  are  still  printed  so.  After  print- 
ing, the  letters  were  returned  to  their  compart- 
ments. If  a  second  edition  was  called  for,  the  type 
had  to  be  set  again.  Now,  however,  books  are  gen- 
erally printed  not  from  type,  but  from  a  copper 
model  of  the  type.  To  make  this,  an  impression 
of  the  page  of  type  is  made  in  wax  and  covered  with 
graphite,  which  will  conduct  electricity.  These 
moulds  are  hung  in  a  bath  of  copper  sulphate,  where 
there  are  also  large  plates  of  copper.  A  current  of 
electricity  is  passed  through  it,  and  wherever  the 
graphite  is,  a  shell  of  copper  is  deposited,  which  is 
exactly  like  the  face  of  the  type.  This  shell  is  very 
thin,  but  it  is  made  strong  by  adding  a  heavy  back 


HOW  BOOKS  ARE  MADE  41 

of  melted  metal.  From  these  plates  the  books 
are  printed.  A  correction  made  in  the  plate  is  more 
expensive  than  it  would  have  been  if  made  in  the 
galley  or  in  the  page,  because  sawing  out  a  word  or 
a  line  is  slow,  delicate  work;  and  even  if  one  of  the 
same  length  is  substituted,  the  types  spelling  it 
have  to  be  set  up,  a  small  new  plate  cast,  and  sol- 
dered in. 


Courtesy  The  Riverside  Press. 

WHERE  THIS   BOOK  WAS   PRINTED 

The  girls  are  feeding  big  sheets  of  paper  into  the  presses,  thirty-two  pages  being  printed 
at  one  time.  The  paper  is  fed  into  many  modern  presses  by  means  of  a  machine  attached 
to  the  press.  The  pressmen  see  that  the  printing  is  done  properly. 

Printing  one  page  at  a  time  would  be  altogether 
too  slow;  therefore  the  plates  are  arranged  in  such 
a  way  that  sixteen,  thirty-two,  or  sometimes  sixty- 
four  pages  can  be  printed  on  one  side  of  the  paper, 
and  the  same  number  on  the  other  side.  Every 


42          MAKERS  OF  MANY  THINGS 

page  must  come  in  its  proper  place  when  the  sheet 
is  folded  for  binding.  Try  to  arrange  a  sheet  of  even 
sixteen  pages,  eight  on  each  side,  so  that  when  it  is 
folded  every  page  will  be  in  the  right  place  with  its 
printing  right  side  up,  and  you  will  find  that  it  is  not 
very  easy  until  you  have  had  considerable  experi- 
ence. If  the  sheet  is  folded  into  four  leaves,  the  book 
is  called  a  "quarto,"  or  "4to";  if  into  eight,  it  is  an 
"octavo,"  or  "8vo";  if  into  twelve,  a  "duodecimo," 
or  "  I2mo."  Books  are  sometimes  advertised  in 
these  terms;  but  they  are  not  definite,  because  the 
sheets  of  the  different  varieties  of  paper  vary  in 
size.  Of  late  years,  publishers  have  often  given  the 
length  and  width  of  their  books  in  inches. 

After  the  sheets  come  from  the  press,  they  are 
folded  to  page  size.  Sometimes  this  is  done  by  hand, 
but  more  often  by  a  folding  machine  through  which 
the  sheet  of  paper  travels,  meeting  blunt  knives 
which  crease  it  and  fold  it.  If  you  look  at  the  top 
of  a  book  you  will  see  that  the  leaves  are  put  to- 
gether in  groups  or  "signatures."  These  signatures 
usually  contain  eight,  sixteen,  or  thirty-two  pages. 
If  the  paper  is  very  thick,  not  more  than  eight  leaves 
will  be  in  a  signature;  if  of  ordinary  thickness,  six- 
teen are  generally  used.  The  signatures  are  piled 
up  in  order,  and  a  "gatherer"  collects  one  from 
each  pile  for  every  book. 

The  book  is  now  gathered  and  "smashed,"  or 
pressed  enough  to  make  it  solid  and  firm  for  bind- 
ing. Next  the  signatures  are  sewed  and  the  book  is 
trimmed  so  the  edges  will  be  even.  If  the  edges 


HOW  BOOKS  ARE  MADE  43 

are  to  be  gilded,  the  book  is  put  in  a  gilding  press 
and  a  skillful  workman  covers  the  edges  with  a 
sizing  made  of  the  white  of  eggs.  Gold  leaf  is  then 
laid  upon  them  and  they  are  burnished  with  tools 
headed  with  agate  and  bloodstone  or  instruments  of 
various  sorts  until  they  are  bright.  Sometimes  the 
edges  are  "  marbled,"  and  this  is  an  interesting  proc- 
ess to  watch.  On  the  surface  of  a  vat  of  thin  sizing 
the  marbler  drops  a  little  of  many  colors  of  paint. 
Then  he  draws  a  comb  lightly  across  the  surface, 
making  all  sorts  of  odd  figures,  no  two  alike.  The 
book  is  held  tight  and  the  edges  are  allowed  to 
touch  the  sizing.  All  these  odd  figures  are  now 
transferred  to  the  edges  of  the  leaves  and  will  stand 
a  vast  amount  of  hard  use  before  they  will  wear 
off. 

Thus  far  the  book  is  flat  at  the  edges  of  the  leaves 
and  at  the  back.  Books  are  sometimes  bound  in 
this  way,  but  the  backs  are  usually  rounded  into 
an  outward  curve,  and  the  fronts  into  an  inward 
curve.  This  is  done  by  a  machine.  At  each  end  of 
the  outward  curve  a  deep  groove  is  pressed  to  re- 
ceive the  cover.  To  make  the  covers  of  a  cloth- 
bound  book,  two  pieces  of  pasteboard  of  the  right 
size  are  cut  and  laid  upon  a  piece  of  cloth  coated 
with  glue.  The  edges  of  the  cloth  are  turned  over 
and  pressed  down,  as  you  can  often  see  if  the  paper 
lining  of  the  cover  is  not  too  heavy.  The  cover  needs 
now  only  its  decorations  to  be  complete.  A  die  is 
made  for  these,  and  the  lettering  and  ornamentation 
are  stamped  on  in  colors.  If  more  than  one  color  is 


44          MAKERS  OF  MANY  THINGS 

used,  a  separate  die  has  to  be  made  for  each.  If 
this  work  is  to  be  done  in  gold,  the  design  is  stamped 
on  lightly  and  sizing  made  of  white  of  eggs  is  brushed 
on  wherever  the  gold  is  to  come.  Gold  leaf  is  laid 
upon  this  sizing,  and  the  cover  is  stamped  again. 
The  same  die  is  used,  but  this  time  it  is  hot  enough 
to  make  the  gold  and  egg  stick  firmly  to  the  cover. 
To  put  the  cover  on,  a  piece  of  muslin  called  a  "  su- 
per "  is  glued  to  the  back  of  the  book  with  its  ends 
projecting  over  the  sides,  and  a  strip  of  cartridge 
paper  is  glued  over  the  super.  Then  the  book  is 
pasted  into  the  cover.  It  is  now  kept  under  heavy 
pressure  for  a  number  of  hours  until  it  is  thoroughly 
dry  and  ready  to  be  sent  away  for  sale. 

So  it  is  that  a  well-made  cloth-bound  book  is 
manufactured.  Leather-bound  books  are  more 
expensive,  not  only  because  their  materials  cost 
more,  but  also  because  the  greater  part  of  the  work 
of  binding  and  decorating  has  to  be  done  by  hand. 
If  a  book  is  to  be  illustrated,  this  must  also  be 
attended  to,  the  number  and  style  of  the  pictures 
decided  upon,  and  the  artist  engaged  before  the 
book  is  put  in  press,  in  order  that  there  may  be  no 
djelay  in  completing  it. 

Many  publishers  do  not  print  at  all,  but  have 
their  work  done  at  some  printing  establishment. 
Where  all  the  making  of  a  book,  however,  from 
manuscript  to  cover,  is  in  the  hands  of  one  firm, 
there  is  a  certain  fellow-feeling  among  the  differ- 
ent departments,  and  a  wholesome  pride  in  making 
each  one  of  "our  books"  as  excellent  as  possible  in 


HOW  BOOKS  ARE  MADE  45 

every  detail.  As  one  of  the  women  workers  in  such 
an  establishment  said  to  me,  "I  often  think  that 
we  become  almost  as  interested  in  a  book  as  the 
author  is." 


VI 

FROM  GOOSE  QUILLS  TO  FOUNTAIN  PENS  AND 
LEAD  PENCILS 

WHENEVER  there  was  a  convenient  goosepond 
on  the  way  to  school,  the  children  of  less  than  one 
hundred  years  ago  used  to  stop  there  to  hunt  for 
goose  quills.  They  carried  these  to  the  teacher,  and 
with  his  penknife  —  which  took  its  name  from  the 
work  it  did  —  he  cut  them  into  the  shape  of  pens. 
The  points  soon  wore  out,  and  "  Teacher,  will  you 
please  mend  my  pen?"  was  a  frequent  request. 

When  people  began  to  make  pens  of  steel,  they 
made  them  as  nearly  like  quill  pens  as  possible, 
with  pen  and  holder  all  in  one.  These  were  called 
"barrel  pens."  They  were  stiff,  hard,  and  expen- 
sive, especially  as  the  whole  thing  was  useless  as 
soon  as  the  pen  was  worn  out,  but  they  were  highly 
esteemed  because  they  lasted  longer  than  quills 
and  did  not  have  to  be  mended.  After  a  while  sepa- 
rate pens  were  manufactured  that  could  be  slipped 
into  a  holder;  and  one  improvement  after  another 
followed  until  little  by  little  the  cheap,  convenient 
writing  tool  that  we  have  to-day  was  produced. 

A  pen  is  a  small  thing,  but  each  one  is  worked 
upon  by  twenty  to  twenty-four  persons  before  it  is 
allowed  to  be  sold.  The  material  is  the  best  steel. 
It  comes  in  sheets  five  feet  long  and  nineteen  inches 
wide,  and  about  one  fortieth  of  an  inch  thick,  that 


FROM   QUILLS  TO   FOUNTAIN   PENS     47 

is,  three  times  as  thick  as  the  finished  pen.  The 
first  machine  cuts  the  sheet  crosswise  into  strips 
from  two  to  three  inches  wide,  varying  according 
to  the  size  of  the  pen  to  be  made.  These  strips  are 
put  into  iron  boxes  and  kept  at  a  red  heat  for  a  num- 
ber of  hours  to  anneal  or  soften  them.  Then  they 
pass  between  heavy  rollers,  a  process  which  not 
only  helps  to  toughen  them,  but  also  stretches  the 
steel  so  that  it  is  now  fifty  inches  long  instead  of 
nineteen. 

At  least  six  or  seven  people  have  handled  the 
material  already,  and  even  now  there  is  nothing 
that  looks  like  pens ;  but  the  next  machine  cuts  them 
out,  by  dies,  of  course.  The  points  interlap;  and 
the  cutting  leaves  odd-shaped  openwork  strips  of 
steel  for  the  scrap-heap.  This  part  of  the  work  is 
very  quick,  for  the  machine  will  cut  thousands  of 
pens  in  an  hour.  Now  is  when  the  little  hole  above 
the  slit  is  punched  and  the  side  slits  cut.  To  make 
the  steel  soft  and  pliable,  it  must  be  annealed  again, 
kept  red  hot  for  several  hours,  and  then  cooled. 
Thus  far  it  has  looked  like  a  tiny  fence  paling,  but 
at  length  it  begins  to  resemble  a  pen,  for  it  is  now 
stamped  with  whatever  letters  or  designs  may  be 
desired,  usually  the  name  of  the  maker  and  the 
name  and  number  of  the  variety  of  pen,  and  it  is 
pressed  between  a  pair  of  dies  to  form  it  into  a 
curve.  The  last  annealing  left  the  metal  soft  so 
that  all  this  could  be  done,  but  too  soft  to  work  well 
as  a  pen;  and  it  has  to  be  heated  red  hot  again,  and 
then  dropped  into  cold  oil  to  harden  it.  Centrifugal 


48          MAKERS  OF  MANY  THINGS 

force,  which  helps  in  so  many  manufactures,  drives 
the  oil  away,  and  the  pens  are  dried  in  sawdust. 
They  are  now  sufficiently  hard,  but  too  brittle. 
They  must  be  tempered.  To  do  this,  they  are 
placed  in  an  iron  cylinder  over  a  fire,  and  the  cylin- 
der revolved  till  the  pen  is  as  elastic  as  a  spring. 

The  pen  is  of  the  correct  shape,  is  tough  and  elas- 
tic; and  now  it  is  put  into  "tumbling  barrels"  which 
revolve  till  it  is  bright  and  ready  for  the  finishing 
touches.  If  you  look  closely  at  the  outside  of  a  steel 
pen  just  above  the  nib,  you  will  see  that  across  it 
run  tiny  lines.  They  have  a  use,  for  they  hold  the 
ink  back  so  that  it  will  not  roll  down  in  drops,  and 
they  help  to  make  the  point  more  springy  and  easier 
to  write  with. 

The  pen  must  be  slit  up  from  the  point.  This  is 
done  by  a  machine,  and  a  most  accurate  one,  for  the 
cut  must  go  exactly  through  the  center  of  the  point 
and  not  reach  beyond  the  little  hole  that  was 
punched.  Only  one  thing  is  lacking  now  to  make 
the  pen  a  useful  member  of  society,  ready  to  do  its 
work  in  the  world ;  and  that  is  to  grind  off  the  points 
and  round  them  in  order  to  keep  them  from  sticking 
into  the  paper. 

After  so  much  careful  work,  it  does  seem  as  if  not 
one  pen  out  of  a  thousand  could  be  faulty;  but  every 
one  has  to  be  carefully  examined  to  make  sure  that 
the  cutting,  piercing,  marking,  forming,  tempering, 
grinding,  and  slitting,  are  just  what  they  should  be. 
These  pens  carry  the  maker's  name,  and  a  few  poor 
ones  getting  into  the  market  might  spoil  the  sale  of 


FROM   QUILLS  TO  FOUNTAIN   PENS    49 

thousands  of  boxes;  therefore  the  examiner  sits  be- 
fore a  desk  covered  with  black  glass  and  looks  at 
every  pen.  The  faulty  ones  are  heated  so  that 
they  cannot  be  used,  and  they  go  to  the  scrap- 
heap. 

Now  the  pens  are  ready  so  far  as  usefulness  goes, 
but  people  have  preferences  in  color.  Some  prefer 
bronze,  some  gray,  and  some  black ;  so  off  the  pens  go 
to  the  tempering-room,  their  last  trip,  and  there  are 
heated  in  a  revolving  cylinder  till  the  right  color  ap- 
pears; then  they  are  chilled  and  lacquered,  put  into 
boxes,  labeled,  packed,  and  sold  for  such  low  prices 
that  the  good  folk  of  a  century  ago,  who  paid  from 
twenty-five  to  fifty  cents  for  a  pen,  would  have 
opened  their  eyes  in  amazement.  When  the  type- 
writer was  invented,  some  people  said,  "That  will 
be  the  death  of  the  steel  pen";  but  as  a  matter  of 
fact,  it  has  greatly  increased  its  sale.  The  type- 
writer makes  writing  so  easy  and  so  quick  that  many 
more  letters  are  written  than  formerly.  All  these 
letters  have  to  be  answered,  and  few  people  com- 
pared with  the  whole  number  own  typewriters,  and 
therefore  the  pen  still  holds  its  place. 

The  lacquer  on  a  steel  pen  protects  it  until  it  has 
been  used  for  a  while.  After  that,  it  will  rust,  if  it  is 
not  wiped,  and  it  will  wear  out  whether  it  is  wiped 
or  not.  All  that  the  gold  pen  asks  is  not  to  be  bent 
or  broken,  and  it  will  last  almost  forever.  It  has  the 
flexibility  of  the  quill,  but  does  not  have  to  be 
"mended."  Gold  pens  are  made  in  much  the  same 
way  as  are  steel  pens;  but  just  at  the  point  a  tiny 


50  MAKERS  OF   MANY  THINGS 

shelf  is  squeezed.  Upon  this  shelf  a  bit  of  the  al- 
loy of  two  exceedingly  hard  metals,  iridium  and 
osmium,  is  secured  by  melting  the  gold  around  it; 
and  it  is  this  bit  which  stands  all  the  wear  of  rubbing 
on  the  paper.  When  gold  pens  were  first  made, 
tiny  bits  of  diamonds  or  rubies  were  soldered  on  for 
points;  but  they  were  expensive,  and  they  had  a 
disagreeable  fashion  of  falling  off. 

A  century  ago,  writers  would  have  thought  it  the 
height  of  luxury  to  have  a  gold  pen;  but  now  they 
are  not  satisfied  unless  they  can  be  saved  the  trou- 
ble of  dipping  it  into  an  inkstand,  and  they  look 
upon  the  fountain  pen  as  their  special  friend.  The 
fountain  pen  carries  its  supplies  with  it.  The  pen 
itself  is  like  any  other  gold  pen,  but  the  barrel  is  full 
of  ink.  A  little  tube  carries  the  ink  to  the  point,  and 
the  slight  bending  back  of  the  pen  as  one  writes  lets 
it  run  out  upon  the  paper.  At  the  end  of  the  slit,  at 
the  back  of  the  pen,  is  a  hole  to  let  air  into  the  barrel 
as  the  ink  runs  out.  A  perfect  fountain  pen  ought 
to  be  prepared  to  write  —  without  shaking  —  when- 
ever the  cap  is  taken  off,  and  not  to  refuse  to  work 
so  long  as  a  drop  of  ink  remains  in  the  barrel.  It 
should  never  drop  ink  at  the  point  and,  whether  the 
point  is  up  or  down,  it  should  never  leak  there  or 
anywhere  else. 

The  stylographic  pen  is  quite  a  different  article. 
There  is  no  pen  to  it;  the  writing  is  done  with  the 
end  of  a  needle  which  projects  through  a  hole  at  the 
point.  The  barrel  and  point  are  full  of  ink ;  but  even 
if  the  pen  is  held  point  down,  it  will  not  leak  because 


FROM   QUILLS  TO   FOUNTAIN  PENS     51 

the  needle  fills  up  the  hole.  When  you  press  the 
point  on  paper  to  write,  the  needle  falls  back  just 
enough  to  let  out  what  ink  is  needed.  The  flow  stops 
the  instant  the  pen  ceases  to  touch  the  paper.  The 
special  advantage  of  the  stylographic  is  that  the 
mere  weight  of  the  pen  is  sufficient  pressure,  and 
therefore  many  hours  of  writing  do  not  tire  the  mus- 
cles of  the  hand.  The  advantage  of  the  fountain 
pen  is  that  it  has  the  familiar  action  of  the  gold  pen, 
and  that  it  will  adapt  itself  to  any  style  of  hand- 
writing. 

A  pen  of  almost  any  kind  is  a  valuable  article,  but 
for  rough-and-ready  use  we  should  find  it  hard  to 
get  on  without  its  humble  friend,  the  lead  pencil. 
A  lead  pencil,  by  the  way,  has  not  a  particle  of  lead 
in  it.  The  "lead"  is  all  graphite,  or  plumbago. 
Years  ago  sticks  of  lead  were  used  for  marking,  and 
made  a  pale-gray  line.  When  graphite  was  intro- 
duced, its  mark  was  so  black  that  people  called  it 
black  lead,  and  the  name  has  stuck.  No  one  who 
has  ever  tried  to  use  a  pencil  of  real  lead  could  fail  to 
appreciate  graphite,  and  when  a  graphite  mine  was 
discovered  in  England,  it  was  guarded  by  armed 
men  as  watchfully  as  if  it  had  been  a  mine  of  dia- 
monds. That  mine  was  exhausted  long  ago,  but 
many  others  have  been  found.  The  best  graphite  in 
the  world  comes  from  Ceylon  and  Mexico. 

When  graphite  was  first  used  for  pencils,  it  was 
cut  into  slabs  and  these  slabs  into  small  strips.  The 
broken  and  powdered  graphite  was  not  used  until  it 
was  discovered  that  it  could  be  mixed  with  clay  and 


52  MAKERS  OF  MANY  THINGS 

so  made  into  sticks.  In  a  lead  pencil  there  are  only 
three  substances,  graphite,  clay,  and  wood,  but  a 
really  good  one  must  be  manufactured  with  as  much 
care  as  if  it  were  made  up  of  twenty.  First  of  all,  the 
graphite  is  ground  and  ground  and  ground,  until,  if 
you  take  a  pinch  of  it  between  your  thumb  and 
finger,  you  can  hardly  feel  that  anything  is  there. 
It  is  now  sifted  through  fine  silk  and  mixed  with 
water  and  finely  powdered  clay,  and  becomes  a  wet, 
inky  mass.  This  clay  comes  from  Austria  and  Bo- 
hemia and  is  particularly  smooth  and  fine.  The 
amount  put  in  is  carefully  weighed.  If  you  have  a 
hard  pencil,  it  was  made  by  using  considerable 
clay;  if  your  pencil  is  soft,  by  using  very  little;  and 
if  it  is  very  soft  and  black,  it  is  possible  that  a  little 
lampblack  was  added. 

This  inky  mass  is  ground  together  between  mill- 
stones for  several  weeks.  Then  it  goes  between 
rollers,  and  at  length  is  squeezed  through  a  die  and 
comes  out  in  soft,  doughy  black  strings.  These  are 
the  "leads"  of  the  pencils.  They  have  been  thor- 
oughly wet,  and  now  they  must  be  made  thoroughly 
dry.  They  are  laid  on  boards,  then  taken  off,  cut 
into  pieces  the  length  of  a  pencil,  and  put  into  ovens 
and  baked  for  hours  in  a  heat  twenty  times  as  great 
as  that  of  a  hot  summer  day.  They  certainly  ought 
to  be  well  dried  and  ready  for  the  wood.  The  red 
cedar  of  Florida,  Tennessee,  Georgia,  and  Alabama 
is  the  best  wood  for  pencils  because  it  is  soft  and  has 
a  fine,  straight  grain.  It  is  cut  into  slabs  about  as 
long  as  one  pencil,  as  wide  as  six,  and  a  little  thicker 


Courtesj  Joseph  Dixon  Crucible  Co. 

HOW   THE   LEAD  GETS   INTO   A   PENCIL 

(i)  The  cedar  slab.  (2)  Planed  and  grooved.  (3)  The  leads  in  place.  (4)  Covered 
with  the  other  half  of  the  slab.  (5)  The  round  pencils  cut  out.  (6)  The  pencil 
separated  and  smoothed.  (7)  The  pencil  varnished  and  stamped. 


54          MAKERS  OF   MANY  THINGS 

than  half  a  pencil.  Every  piece  must  be  examined 
to  make  sure  that  it  is  perfect,  and  it  must  be  thor- 
oughly seasoned  and  kiln-dried  to  free  it  from  oil. 
Then  it  goes  through  a  grooving-machine  which  cuts 
out  a  groove  half  as  deep  as  the  lead.  The  lead  is 
laid  into  one  piece,  another  is  glued  on  top  of  it; 
and  there  is  a  pencil  ready  for  work. 

Such  a  pencil  would  be  useful,  but  to  sell  well  it 
must  also  be  pretty;  and  therefore  it  goes  through 
machinery  which  makes  it  round  or  oval  or  six-sided, 
as  the  case  may  be,  rubs  it  smooth,  and  varnishes  it, 
and  then,  with  gold  leaf  or  silver  leaf  or  aluminum 
or  ink,  stamps  upon  it  the  name  of  the  maker,  and 
also  a  number  or  letter  to  show  how  hard  the  lead 
is. 

The  pencil  is  now  ready  for  sale,  but  many  peo- 
ple like  to  have  an  eraser  in  the  end,  and  this  re- 
quires still  more  work.  These  erasers  are  round  or 
flat  or  six-sided  or  wedge-shaped.  They  are  let  into 
the  pencil  itself,  or  into  a  nickel  tip,  or  drawn  over 
the  end  like  a  cap,  so  that  any  one's  special  whim 
may  be  gratified.  Indeed,  however  hard  to  please 
any  one  may  be,  he  ought  to  be  able  to  find  a  pencil 
to  suit  his  taste,  for  a  single  factory  in  the  United 
States  makes  more  than  six  hundred  kinds  of  pen- 
cils, and  makes  so  many  of  them  that  if  they  were 
laid  end  to  end  they  would  reach  three  times  across 
the  continent. 

There  are  many  exceedingly  cheap  pencils,  but 
they  are  expensive  in  the  end,  because  they  are 
poorly  made.  The  wood  will  often  split  in  sharpen- 


FROM   QUILLS  TO  FOUNTAIN   PENS     55 

ing,  and  the  lead  is  of  poor  materials  so  badly  mixed 
that  it  may  write  blacker  in  one  place  than  another, 
and  is  almost  sure  to  break.  Good  pencils  bearing 
the  name  of  a  reliable  firm  are  cheapest. 


VII 

THE  DISHES  ON  OUR  TABLES 

IF  any  one  should  give  you  a  lump  of  clay  and  ask 
you  to  make  a  bowl,  how  should  you  set  about  it? 
The  first  thing  would  be,  of  course,  to  put  it  on  a 
table  so  you  could  work  on  it  with  both  hands.  You 
would  make  a  depression  at  the  top  and  push  out 
the  sides  and  smooth  them  as  best  you  could.  It 
would  result  in  a  rough,  uneven  sort  of  bowl,  and 
before  it  was  done,  you  would  have  made  one  dis- 
covery, namely,  that  if  the  table  only  turned  around 
in  front  of  you,  you  could  see  all  sides  of  the  bowl 
from  the  same  position,  and  it  would  be  easier  to 
make  it  regular.  This  is  just  what  the  potter's  wheel 
does.  It  is  really  two  horizontal  wheels.  The  upper 
one  is  a  disk  a  foot  or  two  in  diameter.  This  is  con- 
nected by  a  shaft  with  the  lower  one,  which  is  much 
larger.  When  the  potter  was  at  work  at  a  wheel  of 
this  sort,  he  stood  on  one  foot  and  turned  the  lower 
wheel  with  the  other,  thus  setting  the  upper  wheel 
in  motion.  This  was  called  a  "kick-wheel."  As 
wheels  are  made  now,  the  potter  sits  at  his  work  and 
turns  the  wheel  by  means  of  a  treadle. 

Almost  any  kind  of  clay  will  make  a  dish,  but  no 
one  kind  will  make  it  so  well  that  the  addition  of 
some  other  kind  would  not  improve  it.  Whatever 
clays  are  chosen,  they  must  be  prepared  with  great 


THE   DISHES  ON  OUR  TABLES        57 

care  to  make  sure  that  not  one  grain  in  them  is 
coarser  than  any  other.  Sometimes  one  will  slip 
through,  and  you  can  see  on  the  finished  dish  what 
a  bad-looking  place  it  makes.  Even  for  the  coarsest 
earthenware,  such  as  flower-pots,  the  moist  clay  is 
forced  down  a  cylinder  and  through  a  wire  sieve; 
and  for  stoneware  and  porcelain  it  has  to  go  through 
several  processes.  When  flint  and  feldspar  are  used, 
they  are  ground  fine  at  the  quarry.  On  reaching 
the  factory,  they  are  mixed  with  the  proper  quanti- 
ties of  other  clays  —  but  in  just  what  proportions  is 
one  of  the  secrets  of  the  trade.  Then  they  go  into 
" plungers"  or  " Hungers,"  great  round  tanks  with 
arms  extending  from  a  shaft  in  the  center.  The  shaft 
revolves  and  the  arms  beat  the  clay  till  all  the  sand 
and  pebbles  have  settled  on  the  bottom,  and  the  fine 
clay  grains  are  floating  in  the  water  above  them. 
These  pass  into  canvas  bags.  The  water  is  forced 
out  through  the  canvas,  and  on  every  bag  there  is 
left  a  thin  sheet  of  moist  clay.  If  this  is  to  be  used 
for  the  finest  work,  it  is  ground  and  pounded  and 
washed  still  more,  until  it  is  a  wonder  that  any  of  it 
survives ;  then  it  is  sifted  through  a  screen  so  fine 
that  its  meshes  are  only  one  one  hundred  and  fiftieth 
of  an  inch  across.  Now  it  becomes  "slip,"  arid  after 
a  little  more  beating  and  tumbling  about,  it  is  ready 
to  go  to  the  man  at  the  wheel. 

This  man  is  called  the  "thrower,"  because  he  lifts 
the  lump  of  clay  above  his  head  and  throws  it  down 
heavily  upon  the  center  of  the  wheel.  The  things 
that  happen  to  that  lump  of  clay  when  he  touches  it 


58  MAKERS  OF  MANY  THINGS 

and  the  wheel  revolves  seem  like  the  work  of  magic. 
He  presses  his  thumbs  into  it  from  above  and  draws 
the  walls  up  between  his  thumbs  and  fingers.  He 
clasps  his  hands  around  it,  and  it  grows  tall  and 
slender.  He  lays  his  finger  on  the  top  of  the  little 
column  of  clay,  and  it  flattens  in  a  moment.  He 
points  his  finger  at  it,  barely  touching  it,  and  a  little 
groove  appears,  running  around  the  whole  mass.  He 
seems  to  be  wasting  considerable  time  in  playing 
with  it,  but  all  the  while  he  is  making  sure  that  the 
clay  is  perfectly  uniform  and  that  there  are  no  bub- 
bles of  air  in  it.  He  holds  a  piece  of  leather  against 
the  outside  surface  and  a  wet  sponge  against  the  in- 
side, to  make  them  perfectly  smooth;  and  in  a  mo- 
ment he  has  made  a  bowl.  He  holds  his  bent  finger 
against  the  top  of  the  bowl,  and  it  becomes  a  vase. 
With  another  touch  of  his  magical  finger  the  top  of 
the  vase  rolls  over  into  a  lip.  If  he  makes  a  cup  or  a 
mug,  he  models  a  handle  in  clay  and  fastens  it  in 
place  with  slip.  When  it  is  done,  he  draws  a  wire 
deftly  between  the  article  and  the  table,  and  puts  it 
on  a  board  to  dry. 

When  you  watch  a  potter  at  work,  it  all  looks  so 
simple  and  easy  that  you  feel  sure  you  could  do  it; 
but  see  how  skillfully  he  uses  his  hands,  how  strong 
they  are,  and  yet  how  lithe  and  delicate  in  their 
movements.  See  into  what  odd  positions  he  some- 
times stretches  them ;  and  yet  these  are  plainly  the 
only  positions  in  which  they  could  do  their  work. 
See  how  every  finger  does  just  what  he  wishes  it  to 
do.  Notice  all  these  things,  and  you  will  not  be  so 


THE  DISHES  ON  OUR  TABLES        59 

certain  that  making  pottery  is  the  easiest  thing  in 
the  world. 

No  two  pieces  of  hand  work  are  exactly  the  same ; 
and  skillful  as  the  potter  is,  his  pieces  are  not  pre- 
cisely alike.  Many  of  them  therefore  are  passed  over 
to  the  turner  for  finishing.  He  uses  an  ordinary 
lathe,  and  with  this  he  thins  any  place  that  may  be 
a  little  too  thick,  rounds  the  edge,  and  smooths  it. 
The  article  is  partly  dried  when  he  takes  it,  and  so 
its  walls  can  be  cut  thinner.  When  it  leaves  his 
lathe,  all  signs  of  hand  work  have  vanished,  but  the 
dish  is  exactly  like  the  others  of  the  set,  and  this  is 
what  the  greater  number  of  people  want.  In  some 
potteries  there  is  hardly  a  throwing  wheel  in  use, 
and  articles  are  formed  in  plaster  of  Paris  moulds. 
There  are  two  ways  of  using  these  moulds.  By  one 
method,  the  mould  is  put  upon  a  "jigger,"  a  power 
machine  which  keeps  it  revolving,  and  clay  is 
pressed  against  its  walls  from  within.  Above  the 
mould  is  a  piece  of  iron  cut  in  the  shape  of  the  inside 
curve  of  the  bowl  or  whatever  is  being  made.  This 
skims  off  all  the  extra  clay  from  the  inside  of  the 
walls.  Plates  and  saucers  are  made  on  a  jigger. 
The  mould  used  for  this  work  is  a  model  of  the  top 
of  the  plate.  The  workman  makes  a  sort  of  pancake 
of  clay  and  throws  it  upon  the  mould.  A  second 
mould,  shaped  like  half  of  the  bottom  of  the  plate, 
is  brought  down  close  and  revolves,  cutting  off  all 
the  extra  clay  and  shaping  the  bottom  of  the  plate. 
When  the  very  finest  ware  is  to  be  made,  the 
mould  is  used  in  quite  another  fashion.  If  a  pitcher, 


6o  MAKERS  OF  MANY  THINGS 

for  instance,  is  to  be  cast,  the  mould  is  made  in  two 
sections  and  tied  tightly  together.  Then  the  slip  is 
poured  into  it  and  left  for  a  while.  The  plaster  of 
Paris  absorbs  the  water  and  a  layer  of  clay  is  formed 
all  about  the  walls.  When  this  is  thick  enough,  the 
liquid  is  poured  out,  and  after  the  pitcher  has  dried 
awhile,  the  mould  is  carefully  opened  and  the  pitcher 
is  very  gently  taken  out.  The  handle  is  made  in  a 
little  mould  of  its  own  and  fastened  on  with  slip. 
"Eggshell "  porcelain  is  made  in  this  way.  The  clay 
shell  becomes  smaller  as  it  dries,  so  there  is  no  trou- 
ble about  removing  it  from  the  mould  —  if  one 
knows  how.  If  a  large  article  is  to  be  cast,  the  mould 
is  made  in  sections.  Of  course  this  fine  ware  must 
all  be  made  by  hand,  especially  as  machines  do  not 
work  well  with  the  finest  clays ;  but  cheap  dishes  are 
all  made  by  machinery. 

After  any  clay  article  is  thrown,  or  moulded,  or 
cast,  it  is  passed  through  a  little  doorway  and  set 
upon  a  shelf  in  a  great  revolving  cage.  The  air  in 
this  cage  is  kept  at  about  85°  F. ;  but  this  heat  is 
nothing  to  what  is  to  follow;  and  after  the  articles 
are  thoroughly  dry,  they  are  placed  in  boxes  of 
coarse  fire-clay,  which  are  called  "saggers,"  piled 
up  in  a  kiln,  the  doors  are  closed,  and  the  fires  are 
lighted.  For  a  day  and  night,  sometimes  for  two 
days  and  two  nights,  the  fires  burn.  The  heat  goes 
up  to  2000°  or  2500°  F.  Every  few  hours  test  pieces, 
which  were  put  in  for  this  purpose,  are  taken  out. 
When  they  are  found  to  be  sufficiently  baked,  the 
fire-holes  are  bricked  up  and  the  furnace  is  left  for 


THE   DISHES  ON  OUR  TABLES        61 

two  days  longer  to  cool.  The  ware  is  then  called 
"biscuit." 

Biscuit  is  dull  and  porous.  It  is  soon  to  be  glazed, 
but  first  whatever  underglaze  decorating  is  desired 
may  be  done.  Sometimes  the  decorations  are  painted 
by  hand,  and  sometimes  they  are  printed  on  thin 
paper,  laid  upon  the  ware,  and  rubbed  softly  till 
they  stick  fast.  After  a  while  the  paper  is  pulled  off, 
but  the  colors  remain.  Gold  must  be  applied  over 
the  glaze,  and  the  article  fired  a  second  time. 

After  this  decorating,  the  ware  is  generally  passed 
to  a  man  who  stands  before  a  tub  of  glaze,  and  dips 
in  each  article,  though  sometimes  he  stands  before 
the  pieces  of  ware  and  sprays  them  with  an  air 
brush.  Many  different  kinds  of  glaze  are  used,  made 
of  ground  flint,  feldspar,  white  clay,  and  other  sub- 
stances. Common  sea  salt  works  exceedingly  well, 
not  in  liquid  form,  but  thrown  directly  into  the  fire. 
The  chief  thing  to  look  out  for  in  making  a  glaze  is 
to  see  that  the  materials  in  it  are  so  nearly  like  those 
in  the  ware  that  they  will  not  contract  unevenly 
and  make  little  cracks.  This  glaze  is  dried  in  a  hot 
room,  then  looked  over  by  "trimmers,"  who  scrape 
it  off  from  such  parts  as  the  feet  of  cups  and  plates, 
so  that  they  will  not  stick  to  the  saggers  in  firing. 
Besides  this,  little  props  of  burned  clay  are  used  to 
hold  the  dishes  up  and  keep  them  from  touching  one 
another.  These  props  have  fanciful  names,  such  as 
"spurs,"  "stilts,"  "cockspurs,"  etc.  Often  you  can 
see  on  the  bottom  of  a  plate  the  marks  made  by 
these  supports. 


62 


MAKERS  OF  MANY  THINGS 


The  articles  now  are  sent  to  a  kiln  to  be  fired. 
When  they  come  out  there  is  another  chance  for 
decorating,  for  colors  may  be  put  on,  and  another 
firing  will  make  them  look  like  underglaze  painting 


IN   THE   POTTERY 
Pieces  of  coarse  pottery  being  delivered  to  the  kiln  for  firing. 

If  the  decorator  wishes  the  ware  to  have  the  appear- 
ance of  being  ornamented  with  masses  of  gold,  he 
can  trace  his  design  in  yellow  paste,  fire  it,  cover  it 
with  gold,  and  fire  it  again.  To  make  the  "gilt-band 
china"  so  beloved  by  the  good  housewives  of  the 
last  century,  the  decorator  puts  the  plate  upon  a 
horizontal  wheel,  holds  his  brush  full  of  gold  against 
it,  and  turns  the  wheel  slowly.  Sometimes  the  out- 
lines of  a  design  are  printed  and  the  coloring  put  in 


THE  DISHES  ON  OUR  TABLES        63 

by  hand.  When  broad  bands  of  color  are  desired  to 
be  put  around  a  plate  or  other  article,  the  decorator 
sometimes  brushes  on  an  adhesive  oil  where  the 
color  is  to  go,  and  paints  the  rest  of  the  plate  with 
some  water-color  and  sugar;  then  when  the  oil  is 
partly  dry,  he  dusts  on  the  color  in  the  form  of 
powder.  A  plunge  into  water  will  wash  away  the 
water-color  and  leave  the  oil  with  the  powder  stick- 
ing to  it.  Shaded  groundwork  is  made  with  an 
atomizer.  Indeed,  there  are  almost  as  many  methods 
of  decorating  wares  of  clay  as  there  are  persons  who 
work  at  it.  The  results  are  what  might  be  expected 
from  the  prices ;  some  articles  are  so  cheap  and  gaudy 
that  any  one  will  soon  tire  of  them.  Others  are  really 
artistic  and  will  be  a  "joy  forever"  —  until  they 
break. 


VIII 

HOW  THE  WHEELS  OF  A  WATCH  GO  AROUND 

IF  an  electric  automobile  could  be  charged  in 
fifteen  seconds  and  then  would  run  for  forty  hours 
without  recharging,  it  would  be  looked  upon  as  a 
great  wonder ;  but  to  wind  a  watch  in  fifteen  seconds 
and  have  it  run  for  forty  hours  is  so  common  that 
we  forget  what  a  wonder  it  is.  When  you  wind  your 
watch,  you  put  some  of  the  strength  of  your  own 
right  hand  into  it,  and  that  is  what  makes  it  go. 
Every  turn  of  the  key  or  the  stem  winds  up  tighter 
and  tighter  a  spring  from  one  to  two  feet  long,  but 
so  slender  that  it  would  take  thousands  to  weigh  a 
pound.  This  is  the  main  spring.  It  is  coiled  up  in 
a  cup-shaped  piece  of  metal  called  a  "barrel";  and 
so  your  own  energy  is  literally  barreled  up  in  your 
watch.  The  outer  end  of  this  spring  is  held  fast  by 
a  hook  on  the  inside  of  the  barrel;  the  inner  end  is 
hooked  to  the  hub  of  a  wheel  which  is  called  the 
"main  wheel,"  and  around  this  hub  the  spring  is 
coiled. 

This  spring  has  three  things  to  do.  It  must  send 
the  "short  hand,"  or  hour  hand,  around  the  dial  or 
face  of  the  watch,  once  in  twelve  hours;  it  must 
send  the  "long  hand,"  or  minute  hand,  around  once 
an  hour;  and  it  must  also  send  the  little  "second 
hand"  around  its  own  tiny  circle  once  a  minute. 


THE  WHEELS  OF  A  WATCH          65 

To  do  this  work  requires  four  wheels.  The  first  or 
main  wheel  is  connected  with  the  winding  arrange- 
ments, and  sets  in  motion  the  second,  or  center 
wheel,  so  called  because  it  is  usually  in  the  center  of 
the  watch.  This  center  wheel  revolves  once  an  hour 
and  turns  the  minute  hand.  By  a  skillful  arrange- 
ment of  cogs  it  also  moves  the  hour  hand  around 
the  dial  once  in  twelve  hours.  The  center  wheel 
moves  the  third  wheel.  The  chief  business  of  the 
third  wheel  is  to  make  the  fourth  turn  in  the  same 
direction  as  the  center  wheel.  The  fourth  wheel 
revolves  once  a  minute,  and  with  it  turns  the  tiny 
second  hand. 

Suppose  that  a  watch  has  been  made  with  only  the 
main  spring,  the  four  wheels,  and  the  three  hands, 
what  would  happen  when  it  was  wound?  You  can 
tell  very  easily  by  winding  up  a  mechanical  mouse 
or  a  train  of  cars  or  any  other  toy  that  goes  by  a 
spring.  It  will  go  fast  at  first,  then  more  and  more 
slowly,  then  it  will  stop.  This  sort  of  motion  might 
do  for  a  mouse,  but  it  would  not  answer  for  a  watch. 
A  watch  must  move  with  steadiness  and  regularity. 
To  bring  this  about,  there  is  a  fifth  wheel.  Its  fifteen 
teeth  are  shaped  like  hooks,  and  it  has  seven  accom- 
paniments, the  balance  wheel,  the  hair  spring,  and 
five  others.  This  wheel,  together  with  its  accompani- 
ments, is  able  to  stop  the  motion  of  the  watch  five 
times  a  second  and  start  it  again  so  quickly  that  we 
do  not  realize  its  having  been  stopped  at  all.  A  tiny 
arm  holds  the  wheel  firmly,  and  then  lets  it  escape. 
Therefore,  the  fifth  wheel  and  its  accompaniments 


66          MAKERS  OF  MANY  THINGS 

are  called  the  "escapement."    This  catching  and 
letting  go  is  what  makes  the  ticking. 

A  watch  made  in  this  way  would  run  very  well 
until  a  hot  day  or  a  cold  day  came ;  then  there  would 
be  trouble.  Heat  makes  metals  expand  and  makes 
springs  less  elastic.  Therefore  in  a  hot  day  the  watch 
would  go  more  slowly  and  so  lose  time;  while  in  a 
cold  day  it  would  go  too  fast  and  would  gain  time. 
This  fault  is  corrected  by  the  balance,  a  wheel  whose 
rim  is  not  one  circle,  but  two  half-circles,  and  so 
cunningly  made  that  the  hotter  this  rim  grows,  the 
smaller  its  diameter  becomes.  In  the  rim  of  the 
wheel  are  tiny  holes  into  which  screws  may  be 
screwed.  By  adding  screws  or  taking  some  away, 
or  changing  the  position  of  some  of  them,  the  move- 
ment of  the  watch  can  be  made  to  go  faster  or  slower. 

All  this  would  be  difficult  enough  to  manage  if  a 
watch  was  as  large  as  a  cart  wheel,  with  wheels  a 
foot  in  diameter;  but  it  does  seem  a  marvel  how  so 
many  kinds  of  wheels  and  screws  and  springs,  one 
hundred  and  fifty  in  all,  can  be  put  into  a  case  some- 
times not  more  than  an  inch  in  diameter,  and  can 
find  room  to  work;  and  it  is  quite  as  much  of  a 
marvel  how  they  can  be  manufactured  and  handled. 

Remembering  how  accurate  every  piece  must  be,  it 
is  no  wonder  that  in  Switzerland,  where  all  this  work 
used  to  be  done  by  hand,  a  boy  had  to  go  to  a 
"watch  school"  for  fourteen  years  before  he  was 
considered  able  to  make  a  really  fine  watch.  He 
began  at  the  beginning  and  was  taught  to  make, 
first,  wooden  handles  for  his  tools,  then  the  tools 


THE  WHEELS  OF  A  WATCH  67 

themselves,  such  as  files,  screw  drivers,  etc.  His 
next  work  was  to  make  wooden  watchcases  as  large 
as  dinner-plates.  After  this,  he  was  given  the  frame 
to  which  the  various  wheels  of  a  watch  are  fastened 
and  was  taught  how  and  where  to  drill  the  holes  for 
wheels  and  screws.  After  lessons  in  making  the  finer 
tools  to  be  used,  he  was  allowed  to  make  a  watch 
frame.  All  this  took  several  years,  for  he  had  to  do 
the  same  work  over  and  over  until  his  teachers  were 
satisfied  with  it.  Then  he  was  promoted  to  the  sec- 
ond room.  Here  he  learned  to  adjust  the  stem- 
winding  parts,  to  do  fine  cutting  and  filing,  and  to 
make  watches  that  would  strike  the  hour  and  even 
the  minute.  Room  three  was  called  the  "  train 
room,"  because  the  wheels  of  a  watch  are  spoken  of 
as  "the  train."  The  model  watch  in  this  room  was 
as  large  as  a  saucer.  The  young  man  had  to  study 
every  detail  of  this,  and  also  to  learn  the  use  of  a 
delicate  little  machine  doing  such  fine  work  that  it 
could  cut  twenty-four  hundred  tiny  cogs  on  one  of 
the  little  wheels  of  a  watch.  In  the  fourth  room  he 
learned  to  make  the  escapement  wheel  and  some 
other  parts;  and  he  had  to  make  them,  not  merely 
passably,  but  excellently.  In  the  fifth  and  last  room, 
he  must  do  the  careful,  patient  work  that  makes  a 
watch  go  perfectly.  There  are  special  little  curves 
that  must  be  given  to  the  hair  spring ;  and  the  screws 
on  the  balance  wheel  must  be  carefully  adjusted. 
If  the  watch  ran  faster  when  it  was  lying  down  than 
when  it  was  hanging  up,  •  he  learned  that  certain 
ones  of  the  bearings  were  too  coarse  and  must  be 


68          MAKERS  OF  MANY  THINGS 

made  finer.  In  short,  he  must  be  able  to  make  a 
watch  that,  whether  hanging  up  or  lying  down,  and 
whether  the  weather  was  hot  or  cold,  would  not 
vary  from  correct  time  more  than  two  and  a  half 
seconds  a  day  at  the  most.  Then,  and  not  till  then, 
was  the  student  regarded  as  a  first-class  watch- 
maker. 

The  graduate  of  such  a  school  knew  how  to  make 
a  whole  watch,  but  he  usually  limited  his  work  to 
some  one  part.  Every  part  of  a  watch  was  made 
expressly  for  that  watch,  but  sometimes  a  hundred 
different  persons  worked  on  it.  The  very  best  of  the 
Swiss  watches  were  exceedingly  good;  the  poorest 
were  very  bad,  and  much  worse  to  own  than  a  poor 
American  watch  because  it  costs  more  to  repair  a 
Swiss  watch  than  an  American  watch. 

Even  though  in  America  the  parts  of  watches  are 
made  by  machinery,  an  apprentice  has  to  undergo 
just  as  careful  and  just  as  extended  training  here  as 
in  Switzerland.  A  poor  watch  is  worse  than  none  at 
all,  and  careless  work  would  not  be  tolerated  in  any 
watch  factory.  Of  late  even  Switzerland  has  been 
importing  American  machinery  in  order  to  compete 
with  the  United  States.  These  machines  do  such 
careful,  minute,  intricate  work  that,  as  you  stand 
and  watch  them,  you  feel  as  if  they  must  know  what 
they  are  about.  One  of  them  takes  the  frame,  - 
that  is,  the  plates  to  which  the  wheels  are  fastened, 

-  makes  it  of  the  proper  thinness,  cuts  the  neces- 
sary holes  in  it,  and  passes  it  over  to  the  next  ma- 
chine, which  is  reaching  out  for  it.  The  feeder  gives 


Courtesy  Waltham  Watch  Co. 

WHERE  WATCHES   ARE   MADE 

Once  a  single  man  made  a  whole  watch  by  hand.     Now  one  watch  may  be  the  product  of 
a  hundred  hands,  each  man  doing  his  particular  part. 


70          MAKERS  OF  MANY  THINGS 

the  first  machine  another  plate ;  and  so  the  work  goes 
on  down  a  whole  line  of  machines.  At  length  the 
plate  is  taken  in  hand  by  a  machine,  or  rather  a 
group  of  machines,  which  can  do  almost  anything. 
Before  they  let  it  go,  they  actually  perform  one 
hundred  and  forty-two  different  operations,  each 
bringing  it  nearer  completion.  These  machines  are 
automatic,  but  nevertheless  they  must  be  constantly 
watched  by  expert  machinists  to  keep  them  in  order 
and  make  sure  of  their  turning  out  perfect  work. 

While  one  line  of  machines  has  been  perfecting 
the  plate,  others  have  been  at  work  on  screws  and 
wheels  and  springs.  As  many  of  these  as  are  needed 
for  one  watch  are  put  into  a  little  division  of  a  tray 
and  carried  to  another  room  for  its  jewels  and  the 
rest  of  its  outfit.  The  jewels,  which  are  pieces  of 
rubies,  sapphires,  garnets,  or  even  diamonds,  are 
very  valuable  to  a  watch.  When  you  know  that  the 
little  wheels  are  in  constant  motion,  and  that  the 
balance  wheel,  for  instance,  vibrates  eighteen  thou- 
sand times  an  hour,  it  is  plain  that  a  vast  amount  of 
wear  comes  upon  the  spot  where  the  pivots  of  these 
wheels  rest.  No  metal  can  be  made  smooth  enough 
to  prevent  friction,  and  there  is  no  metal  hard 
enough  to  prevent  wear.  The  "jewels  "  are  smoother 
and  harder.  They  are  sawed  into  slabs  so  thin  that 
fifty  of  them  piled  up  would  measure  only  an  inch. 
These  are  stuck  to  blocks  to  be  polished,  cut  into 
disks  flat  on  one  side  but  with  a  little  depression  on 
the  other  to  receive  oil,  bored  through  the  center, 
and  placed  wherever  the  wear  is  greatest  —  pro- 


THE  WHEELS  OF  A  WATCH  71 

vided  the  purchaser  is  willing  to  pay  for  them.  A 
"full-jeweled"  watch  contains  twenty-three  jewels; 
that  is,  in  twenty-three  of  the  places  where  the  most 
severe  wear  comes,  or  where  friction  might  prevent 
the  watch  from  going  with  perfect  smoothness,  there 
will  be  practically  no  wear  and  no  friction.  A  low- 
priced  watch  contains  only  seven  jewels,  but  if  you 
want  a  watch  to  last,  it  pays  to  buy  one  that  is  full- 
jeweled. 

And  now  these  plates  and  wheels  and  screws  are 
to  be  put  together,  or  "assembled,"  as  this  work  is 
called.  This  is  a  simple  matter  just  as  soon  as  one 
has  learned  where  the  different  parts  belong,  for 
they  are  made  by  machinery  and  are  sure  to  fit. 
After  the  assembling  comes  the  adjusting  of  the 
balance  wheel  and  the  hair  spring.  There  is  nothing 
simple  about  this  work,  for  the  tiny  screws  with  the 
large  heads  must  be  put  into  the  rim  of  the  balance 
wheel  with  the  utmost  care,  or  else  all  the  other  work 
will  be  useless,  and  the  watch  will  not  be  a  perfect 
time  keeper;  that  is,  one  that  neither  loses  nor  gains 
more  than  thirty  seconds  a  month. 

It  is  said  that  the  earliest  watches  made  in  Europe 
cost  fifteen  hundred  dollars  and  took  a  year  to  make. 
There  has  always  been  a  demand  for  a  cheap  pocket 
timepiece,  and  of  late  this  demand  has  been  satisfied 
by  the  manufacture  of  the  "dollar  watch."  Prop- 
erly speaking,  this  is  not  a  watch  at  all,  but  a  small 
spring  clock.  It  has  no  jewels,  and  its  parts  are 
stamped  out  of  sheets  of  brass  or  steel  by  machinery. 
The  hair  springs  are  made  in  coils  of  eight  and  then 


72  MAKERS  OF  MANY  THINGS 

broken  apart ;  and  the  main  springs  are  made  by  the 
mile.  Twenty  holes  are  drilled  at  a  time,  and  the 
factory  in  which  " dollar  watches"  were  first  manu- 
factured is  now  able  to  turn  out  fifteen  thousand  a 
day. 


IX 

THE  MAKING  OF  SHOES 

DID  you  ever  stop  to  think  how  many  different 
qualities  you  expect  in  a  shoe?  You  want  the  sole 
to  be  hard  and  firm  so  as  to  protect  your  feet  in 
rough  walking;  and  also  soft  and  yielding  so  as  to 
feel  springy  and  not  board-like.  You  want  the  upper 
leather  to  keep  the  cold  air  from  coming  in ;  and  also 
porous  enough  to  let  the  perspiration  out.  Your 
feet  are  not  exactly  like  those  of  any  one  else;  and 
yet  you  expect  to  find  at  any  shoe  store  a  comfort- 
able shoe  ready-made.  You  expect  that  shoe  to  come 
close  to  your  foot,  and  yet  allow  you  to  move  it  with 
perfect  freedom.  You  expect  all  these  good  qualities, 
and  what  is  more  remarkable,  it  does  not  seem  diffi- 
cult for  most  people  to  get  them.  There  is  an  old 
saying,  "To  him  who  wears  shoes,  the  whole  earth 
is  covered  with  leather";  and  although  many  differ- 
ent materials  have  been  tried  in  shoemaking,  leather 
is  the  only  one  that  has  proved  satisfactory,  for  the 
sole  of  the  shoe  at  least.  Of  late,  however,  rubber 
and  rubber  combinations  and  felts  and  felt  combina- 
tions have  been  used. 

Most  hides  of  which  soles  are  made  come  from  the 
large  beef  packing-houses  or  from  South  America. 
Goatskins  come  from  Africa  and  India.  The  greater 
part  of  a  hide  is  made  up  of  a  sort  of  gelatine.  This 


74  MAKERS  OF  MANY  THINGS 

easily  spoils,  and  therefore  it  has  to  be  " tanned"; 
that  is,  soaked  in  tannin  and  water.  When  a  man 
set  out  to  build  a  tannery,  he  used  to  go  into  the 
woods  where  he  could  be  sure  of  enough  oak  trees 
to  supply  him  for  many  years  with  the  bark  from 
which  tannin  is  made;  but  it  has  been  found  that 
the  bark  of  several  other  kinds  of  trees,  such  as  larch, 
chestnut,  spruce,  pine,  and  hemlock,  will  tan  as  well 
as  that  of  oak.  Tannin  is  now  prepared  in  the  forest 
and  brought  to  the  tanners,  who  put  their  tanneries 
where  they  please,  usually  near  some  large  city. 
The  hides  are  first  soaked  in  water,  and  every  parti- 
cle of  flesh  is  scraped  away.  They  are  laid  in  heaps 
for  a  while,  then  hung  in  a  warm  room  till  the  hair 
loosens  and  can  be  easily  removed,  then  soaked  in 
tannic  extract  and  water.  The  tannin  unites  with 
the  gelatine;  and  thus  the  hide  becomes  leather. 
This  process  requires  several  months.  Hides  are 
also  tanned  by  the  use  of  chemicals,  in  what  is 
called  "chrome"  tanning.  This  process  requires  only 
a  few  hours,  but  it  is  expensive. 

In  earlier  times  the  shoemaker  used  to  go  from 
house  to  house  with  his  lapstone,  waxed  end,  awl, 
and  other  tools.  The  farmer  provided  the  leather, 
which  he  had  tanned  from  the  hides  of  his  own  cattle. 
Now,  however,  manufacturers  can  buy  the  soles  of 
one  merchant,  the  heels  of  another,  the  box  toe  and 
stiffenings  of  another,  and  so  on.  In  the  United 
States  there  are  many  factories  which  do  nothing  but 
cut  soles,  or  rather  stamp  them  out  with  dies,  a  hun- 
dred or  more  in  a  minute.  These  soles  and  also  the 


THE  MAKING  OF  SHOES  75 

less  heavy  inner  soles  go  through  machines  that 
make  all  parts  of  them  of  a  uniform  thickness.  The 
traveling  shoemaker  always  hammered  his  sole 
leather  to  make  it  wear  better;  but  now  a  moment 
between  very  heavy  rollers  answers  the  same  pur- 
pose. Another  rnachine  splits  the  inner  sole  for  per- 
haps a  quarter  of  an  inch  all  the  way  around,  and 
thus  makes  a  little  lip  to  which  to  sew  the  welt.  A 
number  of  layers  or  " lifts"  of  leather  are  cemented 
together  for  the  heel,  and  are  put  under  heavy 
pressure. 

The  upper  parts  of  a  shoe,  the  "uppers,"  as  they 
are  called,  are  the  vamp  or  front  of  the  shoe,  the  top, 
the  tip,  and  (in  a  laced  shoe)  the  tongue.  Nearly  all 
the  upper  leather  that  shows  when  a  shoe  is  on  is 
made  from  the  hides  of  cattle,  calves,  goats,  and 
sheep;  but  besides  the  parts  that  show  there  are 
stiffeners  for  the  box  toe  and  the  counters  to  sup- 
port the  quarters  over  the  heel;  there  are  linings, 
and  many  other  necessary  "  findings,"  forty-four 
parts  in  all  in  an  ordinary  shoe.  Much  experiment- 
ing and  more  thinking  have  gone  into  every  one  of 
these  forty-four  parts ;  and  much  remembering  that 
shoes  have  harder  wear  than  anything  else  in  one's 
wardrobe.  The  cotton  linings,  for  instance,  must 
be  woven  in  a  special  way  in  order  to  make  them 
last  and  not  "rub  up "  when  they  are  wet  with  water 
or  perspiration.  They  are  bleached  with  the  utmost 
care  not  to  weaken  them,  and  they  are  singed  be- 
tween red-hot  copper  plates  to  remove  all  the 
nap. 


76          MAKERS  OF  MANY  THINGS 

Then,  too,  a  good  deal  of  metal  is  used  in  making  a 
shoe,  not  only  the  ornamental  buckles  on  dress  shoes 
and  the  heavy,  useful  buckles  on  storm  boots,  but 
various  pieces  that  help  to  make  the  shoe  strong  and 
enduring.  There  are  nails,  shanks  to  strengthen  the 
arch  of  the  shoe,  metal  shanks  to  the  buttons,  and 
eyelets.  Not  many  years  ago,  eyelets  soon  wore 
brassy,  and  then  the  shoe  looked  old  and  cheap. 
They  are  now  enameled,  or  the  top  of  them  is  made 
of  celluloid  in  a  color  to  match  the  shoe.  The  tags 
on  lacings  and  the  hooks  for  holding  lacings  are  also 
enameled.  A  " box-toe  gum"  is  used  to  support  the 
box-toe  stiffening.  Cement  covers  the  stitches ;  and 
many  sorts  of  blacking  are  used  in  finishing  the  work. 
It  is  by  no  means  a  simple  operation  to  make  a  pair 
of  shoes. 

At  a  busy  shoe  factory  it  is  always  "tag  day,"  for 
when  an  order  is  received,  the  first  step  in  filling  it  is 
to  make  out  a  tag  or  form  stating  how  the  shoe  is  to 
be  made  up  and  when  it  is  to  be  finished.  These 
records  are  preserved,  and  if  a  customer  writes, 
"Send  me  100  pairs  of  shoes  like  those  ordered 
October  10,  1910,"  the  manufacturer  has  only  to 
read  the  record  in  order  to  know  exactly  what  is 
wanted. 

Next,  the  leather  is  selected,  first  grade  or  second 
grade,  according  to  the  price  to  be  paid.  The  pat- 
terns for  the  uppers  are  now  brought  into  play  — 
and,  by  the  way,  it  is  no  small  matter  to  prepare  the 
hundreds  of  patterns  needed  for  a  new  line  of  shoes 
in  all  the  different  widths  and  sizes.  In  some  fac- 


Courtesy   United  Shoe  Mcty.  Co. 

THE  GOODYEAR  PULLING-OVER  MACHINE 

This  machine  cost  $1,500,000  and  five  years  of  experiment  to  perfect.     It  shapes  the  fore- 
part of  the  upper  of  a  shoe  over  a  wooden  last. 


78  MAKERS  OF  MANY  THINGS 

tories  the  cutting  is  done  by  machinery;  in  others 
the  "upper  cutter"  lays  the  leather  on  a  block  and 
cuts  around  the  pattern  with  a  small  but  very 
sharp  knife.  It  needs  skill  and  judgment  to  be  a 
cutter;  for  a  careless  workman  can  easily  waste  the 
skins  badly  by  not  laying  the  patterns  on  to  the 
best  advantage.  While  this  work  is  going  on,  the 
linings,  trimmings,  soles,  and  other  parts  are  also 
being  prepared,  and  all  these  many  pieces  now  meet 
in  the  "stitching-room."  At  the  first  glance,  it  does 
not  seem  as  if  the  right  ones  could  ever  come  to- 
gether, even  though  they  are  marked,  and  some- 
times it  does  happen  that  a  4a  vamp,  for  instance,  is 
put  with  5a  quarters,  and  nobody  knows  the  differ- 
ence until  the  experienced  eye  of  the  foreman  notices 
that  something  is  wrong  with  the  shoe.  The  uppers 
of  the  shoe  are  now  stitched  up,  and  after  a  careful 
inspection,  they  are  sent  on  to  the  "lasting-room." 
The  "last "  of  the  earlier  times  was  roughly  whittled 
out,  and  it  was  the  same  for  both  feet;  but  the  last 
of  to-day  is  almost  a  work  of  art,  so  carefully  is  it 
made  and  polished.  The  shoe  manufacturers  jok- 
ingly declare  that  lasts  must  be  changed  three 
times  a  day  in  order  to  keep  up  with  the  fashions. 
Feet  do  not  change  in  form,  save  when  they  have 
been  distorted  by  badly  shaped  shoes;  but  in  spite 
of  this,  people  insist  upon  having  their  shoes  long 
and  narrow,  or  short  and  wide,  with  high  heels  or 
with  low  heels,  with  broad  toes  or  with  pointed  toes, 
as  the  whim  of  the  moment  may  be.  It  really  is 
a  big  problem  for  the  shoe  manufacturers  to  suit 


THE   MAKING  OF  SHOES  79 

people's  fancies  and  yet  give  them  some  degree  of 
comfort. 

While  the  uppers  are  being  stitched,  the  soles  and 
inner  soles  and  counters  have  been  made  ready  and 
brought  to  the  lasting-room.  The  toe  stiffeners  and 
also  the  counters  are  now  cemented  into  their  places. 
The  inner  sole  is  tacked  to  the  last,  and  the  uppers 
are  put  in  place  and  held  there  by  a  tack  at  the  heel. 
This  is  done  by  machines ;  but  their  working  is  sim- 
ple compared  with  that  of  the  machine  which  now 
takes  charge  of  the  half-made  shoe.  This  machine 
puts  out  sturdy  little  pincers  which  seize  the  edge 
of  the  uppers,  pull  it  smoothly  and  evenly  into  place, 
and  drive  a  tack  far  enough  in  to  keep  it  from  slip- 
ping. Now  comes  the  welting.  A  welt  is  a  narrow 
strip  of  leather  which  is  sewed  to  the  lower  edge 
of  the  upper  all  the  way  around  the  shoe  except 
at  the  heel.  This  brings  the  upper,  the  lip  of  the 
inner  sole,  and  the  welt  together.  The  inside  of 
the  shoe  is  now  smooth  and  even,  but  around  the 
outside  of  the  sole  is  the  ridge  made  by  the  welt 
and  the  sewing,  and  within  the  ridge  a  depression 
that  must  be  filled  up.  Tarred  paper  or  cork  in  a 
sort  of  cement  are  used  for  this.  The  shank  is  fas- 
tened into  its  place  and  the  welt  made  smooth  and 
even.  The  outer  sole  is  coated  with  rubber  cement, 
put  into  position  under  heavy  pressure  to  shape 
it  exactly  like  the  sole  of  the  last,  and  then  sewed 
to  the  welt.  If  it  was  not  for  the  welt,  the  outer 
sole  would  have  to  be  sewed  directly  to  the  inner 
sole.  The  nailing  and  pegging  of  the  old-fashioned 


8o          MAKERS  OF  MANY  THINGS 

shoemaker  are  also  reproduced  by  the  modern  ma- 
chine. 

The  shoe  is  still  open  at  the  heel ;  but  now  the  heel 
parts  of  both  sole  and  uppers  are  fastened  together ; 
the  edges  have  been  nicely  trimmed,  and  next  the 
heels  are  nailed  to  the  shoe  by  another  machine 
which  does  the  work  at  a  blow,  leaving  the  nails 
standing  out  a  little  below  the  lowest  lift.  Another 
lift  is  forced  upon  these ;  and  that  is  why  the  heel  of 
a  new  shoe  shows  no  signs  of  nails.  The  heel  is 
trimmed,  and  then  come  the  final  sandpapering  and 
blackening.  The  bottom  of  a  new  shoe  has  a  pe- 
culiar soft,  velvety  appearance  and  feeling;  and  this 
is  produced  by  rubbing  it  with  fine  emery  paper 
fastened  upon  a  little  rubber  pad.  A  stamping- 
machine  marks  the  sole  with  the  name  of  the  manu- 
facturer. Last  of  all,  the  shoe  is  put  upon  a  tree- 
ing machine,  where  an  iron  foot  stretches  it  into 
precisely  the  shape  of  the  wooden  last  on  which  it 
was  made. 

This  is  the  method  by  which  large  numbers  of 
shoes  are  made,  but  there  are  many  details  which 
differ.  Laced  shoes  must  have  tongues  as  well  as 
eyelets,  while  buttoned  shoes  must  have  buttons 
and  buttonholes.  " Turned"  shoes  have  no  inner 
sole,  but  uppers  and  outer  sole  are  sewed  together 
wrong  side  out  and  then  turned.  In  shoemaking,  as 
in  all  other  business,  if  a  manufacturer  is  to  suc- 
ceed, he  must  see  that  there  is  no  waste.  He  has  of 
course  no  use  for  a  careless  cutter,  who  would  per- 
haps waste  large  pieces  of  leather ;  but  even  the  tini- 


THE  MAKING  OF  SHOES  81 

est  scraps  are  of  value  for  some  purpose.  They  can 
be  treated  with  chemicals,  softened  by  boiling,  and 
pressed  into  boards  or  other  articles  or  made  into 
floor  coverings.  At  any  rate,  they  must  be  used  for 
something.  No  business  is  small  enough  or  large 
enough  to  endure  waste. 


IN  THE  COTTON  MILL 

IF  you  ravel  a  bit  of  cotton  cloth,  you  will  find  that 
it  is  made  up  of  tiny  threads,  some  going  up  and 
down,  and  others  going  from  right  to  left.  These 
threads  are  remarkably  strong  for  their  size.  Look 
at  one  under  a  magnifying  glass,  in  a  brilliant  light, 
and  you  will  see  that  the  little  fibers  of  which  it  is 
made  shine  almost  like  glass.  Examine  it  more 
closely,  and  you  will  see  that  it  is  twisted.  Break  it, 
and  you  will  find  that  it  does  not  break  off  sharp, 
but  rather  pulls  apart,  leaving  many  fibers  standing 
out  from  both  ends. 

Cotton  comes  to  the  factory  tightly  pressed  in 
bales,  and  the  work  of  the  manufacturer  is  to  make 
it  into  these  little  threads.  The  bales  are  big,  weigh- 
ing four  or  five  hundred  pounds  apiece.  They  are 
generally  somewhat  ragged,  for  they  are  done  up  in 
coarse,  heavy  jute.  The  first  glance  at  an  opened 
cotton  bale  is  a  little  discouraging,  for  it  is  not  per- 
fectly clean  by  any  means.  Bits  of  leaves  and  stems 
are  mixed  in  with  the  cotton,  and  even  some  of  the 
smaller  seeds  which  have  slipped  through  the  gin. 
There  is  dust,  and  plenty  of  it,  that  the  coarse  bur- 
lap has  not  kept  out.  The  first  thing  to  do  is  to 
loosen  the  cotton  and  make  it  clean.  Great  armfuls 
are  thrown  into  a  machine  called  a  "bale-breaker." 
Rollers  with  spikes,  blunt  so  as  not  to  injure  the 


IN  THE  COTTON  MILL  83 

fiber,  catch  it  up  and  tear  the  lumps  to  pieces,  and 
"beaters"  toss  it  into  a  light,  foamy  mass.  Some- 
thing else  happens  to  the  cotton  while  it  is  in  the 
machine,  for  a  current  of  air  is  passing  through  it  all 
the  while,  and  this  blows  out  the  dust  and  bits  of 
rubbish.  This  current  is  controlled  like  the  draft  of 
a  stove,  and  it  is  allowed  to  be  just  strong  enough  to 
draw  the  cotton  away  from  the  beater  when  it  has 
become  light  and  open,  leaving  the  harder  masses  for 
more  beating.  When  it  conies  out  of  the  opener,  it 
is  in  sheets  or  "  laps  "  three  or  four  feet  wide  and  only 
half  an  inch  thick.  They  are  white  and  fleecy  and 
almost  cloudlike ;  and  so  thin  that  any  sand  or  broken 
leaves  still  remaining  will  drop  out  of  their  own 
weight. 

In  this  work  the  manufacturer  has  been  aiming, 
not  only  at  cleaning  the  cotton  and  making  it  fluffy, 
but  also  at  mixing  it.  There  are  many  sorts  of  cot- 
ton, some  of  longer  or  finer  or  more  curly  or  stronger 
fiber  than  others,  some  white  and  some  tinged  with 
color;  but  the  cloth  woven  of  cotton  must  be  uni- 
form; therefore  all  these  kinds  must  be  thoroughly 
mixed.  Even  the  tossing  and  turning  and  beating 
that  it  has  already  received  is  not  enough,  and  it  has 
to  go  into  a  "scutcher,"  three  or  four  laps  at  a  time, 
one  on  top  of  another,  to  have  still  more  beating  and 
dusting.  When  it  comes  out,  it  is  in  a  long  roll  or 
sheet,  so  even  that  any  yard  of  it  will  weigh  very 
nearly  the  same  as  any  other  yard.  The  fibers,  how- 
ever, are  lying  "every  which  way,"  and  before  they 
can  be  drawn  out  into  thread,  they  must  be  made  to 


84  MAKERS  OF  MANY  THINGS 

lie  parallel.  This  is  brought  about  in  part  by  card- 
ing. When  people  used  to  spin  and  weave  in  their 
own  houses,  they  used  "hand  cards."  These  were 
somewhat  like  brushes  for  the  hair,  but  instead  of 
bristles  they  had  wires  shaped  much  as  if  wire  hair- 
pins had  been  bent  twice  and  put  through  leather  in 
such  a  way  as  to  form  hooks  on  one  side  of  it.  This 
leather  was  then  nailed  to  a  wooden  back  and  a  han- 
dle added.  The  carder  took  one  card  in  each  hand, 
and  with  the  hooks  pointing  opposite  ways  brushed 
the  cotton  between  them,  thus  making  the  fibers  lie 
parallel.  This  is  just  what  is  done  in  a  mill,  only  by 
machinery,  of  course.  Instead  of  the  little  hand 
cards,  there  are  great  cylinders  covered  with  what  is 
called  "card  clothing";  that  is,  canvas  bristling 
with  the  bent  wires,  six  or  seven  hundred  to  the 
square  inch.  This  takes  the  place  of  one  card.  The 
place  of  the  other  is  filled  by  what  are  called  "flats," 
or  narrow  bars  of  iron  covered  with  card  clothing. 
The  cylinders  move  rapidly,  the  flats  slowly,  and  the 
cotton  passes  between  them.  It  comes  out  in  a 
dainty  white  film  not  so  very  much  heavier  than  a 
spider's  web,  and  so  beautifully  white  and  shining 
that  it  does  not  seem  as  if  the  big,  oily,  noisy  ma- 
chines could  ever  have  produced  it.  In  a  moment, 
however,  it  is  gone  somewhere  into  the  depths  of  the 
machine.  We  have  seen  the  last  of  the  fleecy  sheet, 
for  the  machinery  narrows  it  and  rounds  it,  and  when 
it  comes  into  sight  again,  it  looks  like  a  soft  round 
cord  about  an  inch  thick,  and  is  coiled  up  in  cans 
nearly  a  yard  high.  This  cord  is  called  "sliver." 


IN  A  COTTON   MILL 

The  "  sliver"  coming  through  the  machine,  and  the  "  roving  "  being  twisted  and 
wound  on  bobbins. 


86          MAKERS  OF  MANY  THINGS 

The  sliver  is  not  uniform;  even  now  its  fibers  are 
not  entirely  parallel,  and  it  is  as  weak  as  wet  tissue 
paper.  It  now  pays  a  visit  to  the  "drawing-frame." 
Four  or  six  slivers  are  put  together  and  run  through 
this  frame.  They  go  between  four  pairs  of  rollers, 
the  first  pair  moving  slowly,  the  others  more  rapidly. 
The  slow  pair  hold  the  slivers  back,  while  the  fast 
one  pull  them  on.  The  result  is  that  when  the  sliver 
comes  out  from  the  rollers,  its  fibers  are  much 
straighter.  This  process  is  repeated  several  times; 
and  at  last  when  the  final  sliver  comes  out,  although 
it  looks  almost  the  same  as  when  it  came  from  the 
carding-machine,  its  fibers  are  parallel.  It  is  much 
more  uniform,  but  it  is  very  fragile,  and  still  has  to 
be  handled  with  great  care.  It  is  not  nearly  strong 
enough  to  be  twisted  into  thread ;  and  before  this  can 
be  done,  it  must  pass  through  three  other  machines. 
The  first,  or  "slubber,"  gives  it  a  very  slight  twist, 
just  enough  to  suggest  what  is  coming  later,  and  of 
course  in  doing  this  makes  it  smaller.  The  cotton 
changes  its  name  at  every  operation,  and  now  it  is 
called  "roving."  It  has  taken  one  long  step  forward, 
for  now  it  is  not  coiled  up  in  cans,  but  is  wound  on 
"bobbins,"  or  great  spools.  The  second  machine, 
the  "intermediate  speeder,"  twists  it  a  very  little 
more  and  winds  it  on  fresh  bobbins.  It  also  puts 
two  rovings  together,  so  that  if  one  happens  to  be 
thin  in  one  place,  there  is  a  chance  for  it  to  be 
strengthened  by  a  thicker  place  in  the  other.  The 
third  machine,  the  "fine  speeder,"  simply  makes  a 
finer  roving. 


IN  THE  COTTON  MILL  87 

All  this  work  must  be  done  merely  to  prepare  the . 
raw  cotton  to  be  twisted  into  the  tiny  threads  that 
you  see  by  raveling  a  piece  of  cotton  cloth.  Now 
comes  the  actual  twisting.  If  you  fasten  one  end 
of  a  very  soft  string  and  twist  the  other  and  wind  it 
on  a  spool,  you  will  get  a  spool  of  finer,  stronger,  and 
harder-twisted  string  than  you  had  at  first.  This  is 
exactly  what  the  " ring-spinner"  does.  Imagine  a 
bobbin  full  of  roving  standing  on  a  frame.  Down 
below  it  are  some  rolls  between  which  the  thread 
from  the  bobbin  passes  to  a  second  bobbin  which  is 
fast  on  a  spindle.  Around  this  spindle  is  the  "spin- 
ning-ring," a  ring  which  is  made  to  whirl  around 
by  an  endless  belt.  This  whirling  twists  the  thread, 
and  another  part  of  the  machine  winds  it  upon  the 
second  bobbin.  Hundreds  of  these  ring-spinners  and 
bobbins  are  on  a  single  "  spinning-frame "  and  ac- 
complish a  great  deal  in  a  very  short  time.  The 
threads  that  are  to  be  used  for  the  "weft"  or  "fill- 
ing" go  directly  into  the  shuttles  of  the  weavers 
after  being  spun ;  but  those  which  are  to  be  used  for 
"warp"  are  wound  first  on  spools,  then  on  beams 
to  go  into  the  loom. 

Little  children  weave  together  strips  of  paper, 
straws,  and  splints, —  "over  one,  under  one," 
and  the  weaving  of  plain  cotton  cloth  is  in  principle 
nothing  more  than  this.  The  first  thing  to  do  in 
weaving  is  to  stretch  out  the  warp  evenly.  This 
warp  is  simply  many  hundreds  of  tiny  threads  as 
long  as  the  cloth  is  to  be,  sometimes  forty  or  fifty 
yards.  They  must  be  stretched  out  side  by  side  and 


88  MAKERS  OF   MANY  THINGS 

close  together.  To  make  them  regular,  they  are 
passed  between  the  teeth  of  a  sort  of  upright  comb ; 
then  they  are  wound  upon  the  loom  beam,  a  hori- 
zontal beam  at  the  back  of  the  loom.  Here  they  are 
as  close  together  as  they  will  be  in  the  cloth.  With 
a  magnifying  glass  it  is  easy  to  count  the  threads  of 
the  warp  in  an  inch  of  cloth.  Some  kinds  of  cloth 
have  a  hundred  or  even  more  to  the  inch.  In  order 
to  make  cloth,  the  weaver  must  manage  in  some  way 
to  lower  every  other  one  of  these  little  threads  and 
run  his  shuttle  over  them,  as  the  children  do  the 
strips  of  paper  in  their  paper  weaving.  Then  he 
must  lower  the  other  set  and  run  the  shuttle  over 
them.  " Drawing  in"  makes  this  possible.  After  the 
threads  leave  the  beam,  they  are  drawn  through  the 
"harnesses."  These  are  hanging  frames,  one  in 
front  of  the  other,  filled  with  stiff,  perpendicular 
threads  or  wires  drawn  tight,  and  with  an  eye  in  each 
thread.  Through  these  eyes  the  threads  of  the  warp 
are  drawn,  the  odd  ones  through  one,  and  the  even 
through  the  other.  Then,  keeping  the  threads  in  the 
same  order,  they  pass  through  the  teeth  of  a  "reed," 
—  that  is,  a  hanging  frame  shaped  like  a  great  comb 
as  long  as  the  loom  is  wide;  and  last,  they  are  fas- 
tened to  the  "front  beam,"  which  runs  in  front  of 
the  weaver's  seat  and  on  which  the  cloth  is  to  be 
rolled  when  it  has  been  woven.  Each  harness  is  con- 
nected with  a  treadle.  The  weaver  puts  his  foot  on 
the  treadle  of  the  odd  threads  and  presses  them 
down.  Then  he  sends  his  shuttle,  containing  a  bob- 
bin full  of  thread,  sliding  across  over  the  odd  threads 


IN  THE  COTTON   MILL  89 

and  under  the  even.  He  puts  his  foot  on  the  treadle 
of  the  even  threads  and  sends  the  shuttle  back 
over  the  even  and  under  the  odd.  At  each  trip  of 
the  shuttle,  the  heavy  reed  is  drawn  back  toward  the 
weaver  to  push  the  last  thread  of  the  woof  or  fill- 
ing firmly  into  place. 

This  is  the  way  cloth  is  woven  in  the  hand  looms 
which  used  to  be  in  every  household.  The  power 
loom  used  in  factories  is,  even  in  its  simplest  form, 
a  complicated  machine;  but  its  principle  is  exactly 
the  same.  If  colors  are  to  be  used,  great  care  is 
needed  in  arranging  warp  and  woof.  If  you  ravel  a 
piece  of  checked  gingham,  you  will  see  that  half  the 
warp  is  white  and  half  colored;  and  that  in  putting 
in  the  woof  or  filling,  a  certain  number  of  the 
threads  are  white  and  an  equal  number  are  colored. 
If  you  look  closely  at  the  weaving  of  a  tablecloth, 
you  will  see  that  the  satin-like  figures  are  woven  by 
bringing  the  filling  thread  not  ' '  over  one  and  under 
one,"  but  often  over  two  or  three  and  under  one. 
In  drilling  or  any  other  twilled  goods,  several  har- 
nesses have  to  be  used  because  the  warp  thread  is 
not  lowered  directly  in  line  with  the  one  preceding, 
but  diagonally.  Such  work  as  this  used  to  require  a 
vast  amount  of  skill  and  patience;  but  the  famous 
Jacquard  machine  will  do  it  with  ease,  and  will 
do  more  complicated  weaving  than  any  one  ever 
dreamed  of  before  its  invention,  for  it  will  weave  not 
only  regular  figures  extending  across  the  cloth,  but 
can  be  made  to  introduce  clusters  of  flowers,  a  figure, 
or  a  face  wherever  it  is  desired.  By  the  aid  of  this, 


90          MAKERS  OF  MANY  THINGS 

every  little  warp  thread  or  cluster  of  threads  can  be 
lifted  by  its  own  hooked  wire  without  interfering 
with  any  other  thread.  Cards  of  paper  or  thin  metal 
are  made  for  each  pattern,  leaving  a  hole  wherever 
the  hook  is  to  slip  through  and  lift  up  a  thread. 
After  the  cards  are  once  made,  the  work  is  as 
easy  as  plain  weaving ;  but  there  must  be  a  separate 
card  for  every  thread  of  filling  in  the  pattern,  and 
sometimes  a  single  design  has  required  as  many  as 
thirty  thousand  pattern  cards. 

The  machines  in  a  cotton  mill  are  the  result  of 
experimenting,  lasting  through  many  years.  They 
do  not  seem  quite  so  "human"  as  those  which  help 
to  carry  on  some  parts  of  other  manufactures;  but 
they  are  wonderfully  ingenious.  For  instance,  the 
sliver  is  so  light  that  it  seems  to  have  hardly  any 
weight,  but  it  balances  a  tiny  support.  If  the  sliver 
breaks,  the  support  falls,  and  this  stops  the  machine. 
Again,  if  one  of  the  threads  of  the  warp  breaks  when 
it  is  being  wound  on  the  beam,  a  slender  bent  wire 
that  has  been  hung  on  it  falls.  It  drops  between  two 
rollers  and  stops  them.  Then  the  workman  knows 
that  something  is  wrong,  and  a  glance  will  show 
where  attention  is  needed.  Success  in  a  cotton  mill 
demands  constant  attention  to  details.  A  mill  man- 
ager who  has  been  very  successful  has  given  to 
those  of  less  experience  some  wise  directions  about 
running  a  mill.  For  one  thing,  he  reminds  them  that 
building  is  expensive  and  that  floor  space  counts. 
If  by  rearranging  looms  space  can  be  made  for  more 
spindles,  it  is  well  worth  while  to  rearrange.  He 


IN  THE  COTTON   MILL  91 

tells  them  to  study  their  machines  and  see  whether 
they  are  working  so  slowly  that  they  cannot  do  as 
much  as  possible,  or  so  fast  as  to  strain  the  work. 
He  bids  them  to  keep  their  gearings  clean,  to  be 
clear  and  definite  in  their  orders,  and  to  read  the 
trade  papers;  but  above  everything  else  to  look  out 
for  the  little  things,  a  little  leak  in  the  mill  dam,  a 
little  too  much  tightness  in  a  belt,  or  the  idleness  of 
just  one  spindle.  Herein  lies,  he  says,  one  of  the 
great  differences  between  a  successful  and  an  un- 
successful superintendent. 

Weaving  as  practiced  in  factories  is  a  complicated 
business ;  but  whether  it  is  done  with  a  simple  hand 
loom  in  a  cottage  or  with  a  big  power  loom  in  a  great 
factory,  there  are  always  three  movements.  One 
separates  the  warp  threads;  one  drives  the  shuttle 
between  them;  and  one  swings  the  reed  against  the 
filling  thread  just  put  in. 


XI 

SILKWORMS  AND  THEIR  WORK 

ABOUT  silk  there  is  something  particularly  agree- 
able. There  are  few  people  who  do  not  like  the  sheen 
of  a  soft  silk,  the  sparkle  of  light  on  a  "  taffeta," 
and  the  richness  of  the  silk  that  "can  stand  alone." 
Its  delicate  rustle  is  charming,  and  the  "feel"  of  it 
is  a  delight.  It  has  not  the  chill  of  linen,  the  dead- 
ness  of  cotton,  or  the  "  scratchiness "  of  woolen.  It 
pleases  the  eye,  the  ear,  and  the  touch. 

The  caterpillars  of  a  few  butterflies  and  of  many 
moths  are  spinners  of  fibers  similar  to  silk.  Among 
these  last  is  the  beautiful  pale-green  lunar  moth. 
Spiders  spin  a  lustrous  fiber,  and  it  is  said  that  a 
lover  of  spiders  succeeded,  by  a  good  deal  of  petting 
and  attention,  in  getting  considerable  material  from 
a  company  of  them.  Silkworms,  however,  are  the 
only  providers  of  real  silk  for  the  world.  Once  in  a 
while  glowing  accounts  are  published  of  the  ease 
with  which  they  can  be  raised  and  the  amount  of 
money  which  can  be  made  from  them  with  very 
small  capital.  This  business,  however,  like  all  other 
kinds  of  business,  requires  close  attention  and  skill 
if  it  is  to  be  a  success.  An  expert  has  said  that  it 
needs  more  time  to  build  a  spool  of  silk  than  a  loco- 
motive. 

The  way  to  begin  to  raise  silkworms  is  first  of  all 
to  provide  something  for  them  to  eat.  They  are 


SILKWORMS  AND  THEIR  WORK      93 

very  particular  about  their  bill  of  fare.  The  leaf  of 
the  osage  orange  will  answer,  but  they  like  much 
better  the  leaf  of  the  white  mulberry.  Then  send 
to  a  reliable  dealer  for  a  quarter  of  an  ounce  of  silk- 
worm eggs.  That  sounds  like  a  small  order,  but  it 
will  bring  you  nine  or  ten  thousand  eggs,  ready  to 
become  sturdy  little  silkworms  if  all  goes  well  with 
them.  Put  them  on  a  table  with  a  top  of  wire  netting 
covered  with  brown  paper,  and  keep  them  comfort- 
ably warm.  In  a  week  or  two,  there  will  appear 
some  little  worms  about  an  eighth  of  an  inch  long 
and  covered  with  black  hairs.  These  tiny  worms 
have  to  become  three  inches  or  more  in  length,  and 
they  are  expected  to  accomplish  the  feat  in  about  a 
month.  If  a  boy  four  feet  tall  should  grow  at  the 
silkworm's  rate  for  one  month,  he  would  become 
forty-eight  feet  tall.  It  is  no  wonder  that  the  worms 
have  to  make  a  business  of  eating,  or  that  the  keeper 
has  to  make  a  business  of  providing  them  with  food. 
They  eat  most  of  the  time,  and  they  make  a  queer 
little  crackling  sound  while  they  are  about  it.  They 
have  from  four  to  eight  meals  a  day  of  mulberry 
leaves.  The  worms  from  a  quarter  of  an  ounce  of 
eggs  begin  with  one  pound  a  day,  and  work  up  to 
between  forty  and  fifty.  Silkworms  like  plenty  of 
fresh  air,  and  if  they  are  to  thrive,  their  table  must 
be  kept  clean.  A  good  way  to  manage  this  is  to  put 
over  them  paper  full  of  holes  large  enough  for  them 
to  climb  through.  Lay  the  leaves  upon  the  paper; 
the  worms  will  come  up  through  the  holes  to  eat, 
and  the  litter  on  their  table  can  be  cleared  away. 


94          MAKERS  OF  MANY  THINGS 

As  the  worms  grow  larger,  the  holes  must  be  made 
larger.  It  is  no  wonder  that  their  skins  soon  become 
too  tight  for  them.  They  actually  lose  their  appetite 
for  a  day  or  two,  and  they  slip  away  to  some  quiet 
corner  under  the  leaves,  and  plainly  wish  there  were 
no  other  worms  to  bother  them.  Soon  the  skin  comes 
off,  and  they  make  up  for  lost  time  so  energetically 
that  they  have  to  drop  their  tight  skins  three  times 
more  before  they  are  fully  grown.  Wet  mulberry 
leaves  must  not  be  given  them,  or  they  will  become 
sick  and  die,  and  there  will  be  an  end  of  the  silkworm 
business  from  that  quarter-ounce  of  eggs.  They 
must  have  plenty  of  room  on  their  table  as  well  as 
in  their  skins.  At  first  a  tray  or  table  two  feet  long 
and  a  little  more  than  one  foot  wide  will  be  large 
enough;  but  when  they  are  full-grown,  they  will 
need  about  eighty  square  feet  of  table  or  shelves. 
At  spinning  time,  even  this  will  not  be  enough. 

After  the  worms  have  shed  their  skins  four  times 
and  then  eaten  as  much  as  they  possibly  can  for 
eight  or  ten  days,  they  begin  to  feel  as  if  they  had 
had  enough.  They  now  eat  very  little  and  really 
become  smaller.  They  are  restless  and  wander  about. 
Now  and  then  they  throw  out  threads  of  silk  as  fine 
as  a  spider's  web.  They  know  exactly  what  they 
want;  each  little  worm  wants  to  make  a  cocoon,  and 
all  they  ask  of  you  is  to  give  them  the  right  sort  of 
place  to  make  it  in.  When  they  live  out  of  doors  in 
freedom,  they  fasten  their  cocoons  to  twigs;  and  if 
you  wish  to  give  them  what  they  like  best,  get  plenty 
of  dry  twigs  and  weave  them  together  in  arches 


SILKWORMS  AND  THEIR  WORK      95 

standing  over  the  shelves.  Pretty  soon  you  will  see 
one  worm  after  another  climb  up  the  twigs  and  select 
a  place  for  its  cocoon.  Before  long  it  throws  out 
threads  from  its  spinneret,  a  tiny  opening  near  the 
mouth,  and  makes  a  kind  of  net  to  support  the 
cocoon  which  it  is  about  to  weave. 

The  silkworm  may  have  seemed  greedy,  but  he 
did  not  eat  one  leaf  too  much  for  the  task  that  lies 
before  him.  There  is  nothing  lazy  about  him;  and 
now  he  works  with  all  his  might,  making  his  cocoon. 
He  begins  at  the  outside  and  shapes  it  like  a  particu- 
larly plump  peanut  of  a  clear,  pale  yellow.  The  silk 
is  stiffened  with  a  sort  of  gum  as  it  comes  out  of  the 
spinneret.  The  busy  little  worm  works  away,  laying 
its  threads  in  place  in  the  form  of  a  figure  eight.  For 
some  time  the  cocoon  is  so  thin  that  one  can  watch 
him.  It  is  calculated  that  his  tiny  head  makes  sixty- 
nine  movements  every  minute. 

The  covering  grows  thicker  and  the  room  for  the 
silkworm  grows  smaller.  After  about  seventy-two 
hours,  put  your  ear  to  the  cocoon,  and  if  all  is  quiet 
within,  it  is  completed  and  the  worm  is  shut  up 
within  it.  Strange  things  happen  to  him  while  he 
sleeps  in  the  quiet  of  his  silken  bed,  for  he  becomes  a 
dry  brown  chrysalis  without  head  or  feet.  Then 
other  things  even  more  marvelous  come  to  pass,  for 
in  about  three  weeks  the  little  creature  pushes  the 
threads  apart  at  one  end  of  the  cocoon  and  comes 
out,  not  a  silkworm  at  all,  but  a  moth  with  head 
and  wings  and  legs  and  eyes.  This  moth  lays  hun- 
dreds of  eggs,  and  in  less  than  three  weeks  it  dies. 


96          MAKERS  OF  MANY  THINGS 

This  is  what  the  silkworm  will  do  if  it  is  left  alone ; 
but  it  is  the  business  of  the  silk-raiser  to  see  that  it  is 
not  left  alone.  About  eight  days  after  the  cocoon 
is  begun,  it  is  steamed  or  baked  to  kill  the  chrysalis 
so  that  it  cannot  make  its  way  out  and  so  spoil  the 
silk.  The  quarter  of  an  ounce  of  eggs  will  make 
about  thirty  pounds  of  cocoons.  Now  is  the  time 
to  be  specially  watchful,  for  there  is  nothing  in 
which  rats  and  mice  so  delight  as  a  plump,  sweet 
chrysalis;  and  they  care  nothing  whatever  for  the 
three  or  four  thousand  yards  of  silk  that  is  wound 
about  each  one. 

To  take  this  silk  off  is  a  delicate  piece  of  work. 
A  single  fiber  is  not  much  larger  than  the  thread 
of  a  cobweb,  and  before  the  silk  can  be  used,  several 
threads  must  be  united  in  one.  First,  the  cocoon  is 
soaked  in  warm  water  to  loosen  the  gum  that  the 
worm  used  to  stick  its  threads  together.  Ends  of 
silk  from  half  a  dozen  or  more  cocoons  are  brought 
together,  run  through  a  little  hole  in  a  guide,  and 
wound  on  a  reel  as  one  thread.  This  needs  skill  and 
practice,  for  the  reeled  silk  must  be  kept  of  the  same 
size.  The  cocoon  thread  is  so  slender  that,  of  course, 
it  breaks  very  easily;  and  when  this  happens,  an- 
other thread  must  be  pieced  on.  Then,  too,  the  inner 
silk  of  the  cocoon  is  finer  than  the  outer;  so  unless 
care  is  taken  to  add  threads,  the  reeled  silk  will  be 
irregular.  The  water  must  also  be  kept  just  warm 
enough  to  soften  the  gum,  but  not  too  hot. 

The  silk  is  taken  off  the  reel,  and  the  skeins  are 
packed  up  in  bales  as  if  it  were  of  no  more  value  than 


Courtesy   Cheney  Broi. 


HOW  SPUN   SILK  IS   MADE 


Every  manufacturer  saves  everything  he  can,  and  even  the  waste  silk  which  cannot  be 
wound  op  reejs  is  turned  into  a  salable  product 


98          MAKERS  OF  MANY  THINGS 

cotton.  Indeed,  it  does  not  look  nearly  so  pretty 
and  attractive  as  a  lap  of  pure  white  cotton,  for  it  is 
stiff  and  gummy  and  has  hardly  any  luster.  Now  it 
is  sent  to  the  manufacturer.  It  is  soaked  in  hot  soapy 
water  for  several  hours,  and  it  is  drawn  between 
plates  so  close  together  that,  while  they  allow  the 
silk  to  go  through,  they  will  not  permit  the  least  bit 
of  roughness  or  dirt  to  pass.  If  the  thread  breaks, 
a  tiny  "faller,"  such  as  are  used  in  cotton  mills, 
falls  down  and  stops  the  machine.  The  silk  must 
now  be  twisted,  subjected  to  two  or  three  processes 
to  increase  its  luster,  and  dyed,  —  and  if  you  would 
like  to  feel  as  if  you  were  paying  a  visit  to  a  rain- 
bow, go  into  a  mill  and  watch  the  looms  with  their 
smooth,  brilliant  silks  of  all  the  colors  that  can  be 
imagined.  After  the  silk  is  woven,  it  is  polished  on 
lustering  machines,  singed  to  destroy  all  bits  of  free 
fibers  or  lint,  freed  of  all  threads  that  may  project, 
and  scoured  if  it  is  of  a  light  color;  then  sold. 

The  moth  whose  cocoon  provides  most  of  our  silk 
is  called  the  "bombyx  mori."  There  are  others, 
however,  and  from  some  of  these  tussah  silk,  Yama- 
mai,  and  Shantung  pongee  are  woven.  These  wild 
moths  produce  a  stronger  thread,  but  it  is  much  less 
smooth  than  that  of  the  bombyx. 

There  is  also  a  great  amount  of  "wood  silk,"  or 
artificial  silk,  on  the  market.  To  make  this,  wood 
pulp  is  dissolved  in  ether  and  squirted  through  fine 
jets  into  water.  It  is  soon  hard  enough  to  be  twisted 
into  threads  and  woven.  It  makes  an  imitation  of 
silk,  bright  and  lustrous,  but  not  wearing  so  well  as 


SILKWORMS  AND  THEIR  WORK      99 

the  silk  of  the  silkworm.  Nevertheless,  for  many 
purposes  it  is  used  as  a  substitute  for  silk,  and  many 
braids  and  passementeries  are  made  of  it.  Then, 
too,  there  are  the  "mercerized"  goods,  which  often 
closely  resemble  real  silk,  although  there  is  not  a 
thread  of  silk  in  them.  It  was  discovered  many 
years  ago  that  if  a  piece  of  cotton  cloth  was  boiled 
in  caustic  soda,  it  would  become  soft  and  thick  and 
better  able  to  receive  delicate  dyes.  Unfortunately, 
it  also  shrank  badly.  At  length  it  occurred  to  some 
one  that  the  cloth  might  be  kept  from  shrinking  by 
being  stretched  out  during  the  boiling  in  soda.  He 
was  delighted  to  find  that  this  process  made  it  more 
brilliant  than  many  silks. 

The  threads  that  fasten  the  cocoon  to  the  bush 
and  those  in  the  heart  of  the  cocoon  are  often  used, 
together  with  the  fiber  from  any  cocoons  through 
which  the  worms  have  made  their  way  out.  This  is 
real  silk,  of  course,  but  it  is  made  of  short  fibers 
which  cannot  be  wound.  It  is  carded  and  spun  and 
made  into  fabric  called  "spun  silk,"  which  is  used 
extensively  for  the  heavier  classes  of  goods.  Then, 
too,  silks  are  often  "weighted";  that  is,  just  before 
they  are  dyed,  salts  of  iron  or  tin  are  added.  One 
pound  of  silk  will  absorb  two  or  three  pounds  of 
these  chemicals,  and  will  apparently  be  a  heavy 
silk,  while  it  is  really  thin  and  poor.  Moreover,  this 
metallic  weighting  rubs  against  the  silk  fiber  and 
mysterious  holes  soon  begin  to  appear.  A  wise  "dry 
cleaner"  will  have  nothing  to  do  with  such  silks, 
lest  he  should  be  held  responsible  for  these  holes. 


ioo        MAKERS  OF  MANY  THINGS 

It  is  this  weighting  which  produces  the  peculiar 
rustle  of  taffeta;  and  if  women  would  be  satisfied 
with  a  taffeta  that  was  soft  and  thin,  the  manufac- 
turers would  gladly  leave  out  the  salts  of  iron,  and 
the  silks  would  wear  much  better.  Cotton  is  seldom 
mixed  with  the  silk  warp  thread;  but  it  is  used  as 
"filling"  in  a  large  class  of  goods  with  silk  warp. 
The  custom  has  arisen  of  advertising  such  goods  as 
"silk,"  which  of  course  is  not  a  fair  description  of 
them.  Advertisements  sometimes  give  notice  of 
amazing  sales  of  "Shantung  pongee,"  which  has 
been  made  in  American  looms  and  is  a  very  different 
article  from  the  imported  "wild  silk"  pongee. 

With  so  many  shams  in  the  market,  how  is  a 
woman  to  know  what  she  is  buying  and  whether  it 
will  wear?  There  are  a  few  simple  tests  that  are 
helpful.  Ravel  a  piece  of  silk  and  examine  the  warp 
and  woof.  If  they  are  of  nearly  the  same  size,  the 
silk  is  not  so  likely  to  split.  See  how  strong  the 
thread  is.  Burn  a  thread.  If  it  burns  with  a  little 
flame,  it  is  cotton.  If  it  curls  up  and  smells  like 
burning  wool,  it  is  probably  silk.  Another  test  by 
fire  is  to  burn  a  piece  of  the  goods.  If  it  is  silk,  it  will 
curl  up;  if  it  is  heavily  weighted,  it  will  keep  its 
shape.  If  you  boil  a  sample  in  caustic  potash,  all  the 
silk  in  it  will  dissolve,  but  the  cotton  will  remain. 
If  the  whole  sample  disappears,  you  may  be  sure 
that  it  was  all  silk.  Soft,  finely  woven  silks  are  safest 
because  they  will  not  hold  so  much  weighting.  Crepe 
de  chine  is  made  of  a  hard  twisted  thread  and  there- 
fore wears  well.  Taffeta  can  carry  a  large  amount  of 


SILKWORMS  AND  THEIR  WORK    101 

weighting,  and  is  always  doubtful ;  it  may  wear  well, 
and  it  may  not.  There  is  always  a  reason  for  a  bar- 
gain sale  of  silks.  The  store  may  wish  to  clear  out  a 
collection  of  remnants  or  to  get  rid  of  a  line  of  goods 
which  are  no  longer  to  be  carried;  but  aside  from 
this,  there  is  usually  some  defect  in  the  goods  them- 
selves or  else  they  have  failed  to  please  the  fashion- 
able whim  of  the  moment.  Silk  is  always  silk,  and 
if  you  want  it,  you  must  pay  for  it. 


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